Introducing Groups in Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android
More than 10 million people rely on Groups in Outlook every month to work together and get things done. Groups is proving useful to our customers. And for that, we couldn’t be more thankful. Groups in Outlook offers huge improvements over traditional distribution lists, with a shared space for group conversations, calendars, files and notebooks, the convenience of self-service membership and much more.
Today, we’re pleased to announce Groups is now rolling out to Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android. Groups is already available in Outlook for Windows and on the web—so now you can access your group conversations and content no matter which platform you use.
With these updates, you can:
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View your group list.
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Read and reply to group conversations.
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Add group events to your personal calendar.
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View unread messages sent to the group.
View group details within the group card (Outlook for iOS and Android only).
There is more to come as we continue to work on making Groups better in response to your input, so stay tuned.
Recently released updates for Groups in Outlook
In addition to bringing groups to more Outlook apps, we’ve released several new features for Groups in Outlook on other platforms, too.
Give guest access—Last fall, we updated Outlook on the web to give you the ability to set up guest access for people outside your organization, set group classification as defined by Office 365 admins, and view usage guidelines. Now, these same capabilities are available in Outlook for Windows.
Invite people to join—One of our most requested improvements was an easier way to invite multiple people to join a group. We’ve released the Invite to join feature to Outlook on the web, which lets you create invitation links and share them with others via email or other channels, giving them a quick way to join the group.
Multi-delete conversations—Group owners can now multi-select conversations and delete them from the group conversations space in Outlook for Windows.
Send email as a group—Office 365 admins can grant send-as and send-on-behalf-of permissions to members of a group using the Exchange admin center. Group members who have these permissions can then send emails as the group, or on behalf of the group, from Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.
What’s next
We’re always listening to your feedback as we deliver new Groups capabilities to Outlook. Here are a few of your key requests we are going to tackle next:
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Add appointments to a group calendar in Outlook for Windows—When adding an event to a group calendar, you will have the option to do so without sending an invite to everyone in the group.
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Addition of Mail Contacts as guests—You will be able to easily add Mail Contacts in your company’s directory as a guest in a group.
Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming via our UserVoice site.
9 Ways to Extend Your Android's Battery Life
We've all been there. You're away from home, and your Android's battery is quickly slipping away. You need to squeeze out all the battery life you can until you can plug in, but that's not for several hours. What's a desperate on the go, have-to-be-connected person to do? Luckily, there many ways you can conserve battery life, whether you're down to almost nothing or looking to keep your Android going longer as a general practice.
Here are nine ways to save battery life whether you're at flying high at 75 percent or lurching toward 10 percent or less.
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Shut it down. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, location Services, and NFC, that is. If you're not using it, turn it off. Switch on Airplane mode if you're somewhere with a poor signal, so your phone doesn't keep trying to connect.
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No really, shut it down. Better yet, power the phone off until you need it again. If you're not waiting for an important call or text, just unplug for a bit. Maybe even read a book!
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Why so bright? Your screen can easily devour battery life if you don't pay attention. In those dire moments when you need a battery extension, turn down the brightness a couple notches.
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Find the culprit. Look at which apps are taking up the most battery life by going into the application manager and looking at the apps currently running on your phone. Here, you can see how much bandwidth each app is using, and even force stop it, if necessary.
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Keep it simple. OK, this is obvious, but it has to be said: avoid using power hungry apps like games and videos, and any app that's powered by ads, thus requiring a network connection.
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Join the Lollipop Guild. Or the Marshmallow Brigade? Introduced in Android Lollipop, a power saving mode, turns off haptic feedback (vibration) on your keyboard, dims your screen, and slows down your smartphone. Marshmallow adds a Doze Mode, which kicks in when your device is idle for an extended period of time and keeps apps from running in the background.
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Of course, there's an app for that. Download an app like Clean Master or Juice Defender, which help manage power-hungry apps and adjust battery-draining settings in the background to keep your phone running efficiently.
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Get to the Rooting of the Problem. Rooting offers battery-saving benefits. First, you can clean up your phone by removing bloatware, and at the same time, you can access apps designed for rooted phones that can help you save on battery life, such as Greenify.
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Always bring backup. Finally, get a smartphone case with a built-in battery. You can find charging cases in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes from Mophie, PowerSkin and uNu. Alternatively, you can purchase a portable charger from Anker, PhoneSuit, Powermat, and others.
In the meantime, Android smartphones are becoming more and more efficient, while Google adds more power-saving features to the OS. For example, the upcoming Marshmallow 6.0 update will include Doze Mode, which prevents apps from checking for updates when the phone has been idle for a while, and a Do Not Disturb feature, which, when enabled, lets you choose which notifications come through for a set period of time. Manufacturers have added their own features, such as Samsung's ultra power saving mode, which changes your screen to a grayscale theme and limits app usage.
Skype for Business for Android
Skype for Business for Android is a productivity app that brings Skype Meetings, instant messaging, voice, and video capabilities to your Android mobile device. It has a new look and feel, at-a-glance view of your upcoming meetings and conversation history, simplified call controls, and many other improvements.
Other related posts:
[catlist name=skype-for-business]
Microsoft recently released Skype for Business for Android. The company has been testing the app on Android for a little while, and it’s finally available for the public. With the new Skype for Business app, Microsoft is offering a new dashboard design which offers a Skype for Windows-like experience on tablet devices. Microsoft states:
A new dashboard design brings the contact search bar, your upcoming meetings and most recent conversations to one place. Simply tap the Quick Join icon to the right of your appointment name to join your meetings with one touch, or tap the name of the meeting to see its details. Your recent conversations are at your fingertips, no matter which device you had the conversation on. Additionally, full-screen video as well as larger call-control buttons to mute and add participants to a meeting make it easy for you to collaborate on the go.
Additionally, Microsoft is also offering a better contact management experience with the new Skype for Business for Android app. In the new app, users can easily search for a contact within groups, etc. The app also brings a “modern” authentication experience for users, which is also pretty nice to see.
Microsoft recently released a new update for the Skype app for Android. While the latest update doesn’t come with a changelog, the folks over at Android Police are reporting that the latest update brings support for heads-up notifications. With the heads-up notifications, you’ll be able to interact with the notifications while you’re using another app — without even opening the Skype app.
Alongside the new heads-up notifications support, the update also packs support for a new monochromatic ticker icon, which looks pretty cool. If you’re an Android user, you can get the Skype for Android app from the Google Play Store here.
Announcing the preview of Skype for Business apps for iOS and Android
Today’s post was written by Jared Goralnick, principal group program manager for the Skype for Business team as written on Office Blogs.
We’ve seen great momentum in the first few months since the arrival of Skype for Business, and today, I’m excited to announce the preview of the new Skype for Business apps for iOS and Android. Here’s a look at what’s new and how you can participate in the preview.
What’s new?
We’ve infused Skype simplicity throughout the new iOS and Android apps, created a new dashboard for easy navigation of your contacts, calls and meetings, and updated the In-Call and In-Meeting experience.
The updated dashboard brings the contact search bar, your upcoming meetings and most recent conversations to one place.
Contact search bar—Search your Global Address List by first name, last name, email alias or even a phone number! On iOS, your phone contacts are also included in the search.
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Upcoming appointments—Here you can see your current and next meetings in your calendar. You can either click through to read more about the meeting or click the Quick Join icon to join the meeting right away.
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Recent conversations—Makes it easy to refer back to your most recent chats, phone calls and meetings.
We rebuilt the In-Call and In-Meeting experience with new features that make it easier to navigate calls and meetings on your mobile phone or tablet.
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Larger buttons make it easier to mute, add participants and manage your call.
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Video, which now fills the screen, brings you closer to your colleagues.
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We made it easier to navigate between video and content with just one tap by simplifying the IM, video and content panes. While you can still view content in full screen, you can now also view content and see the speaker’s video at the same time!
Join our preview
If you have Lync 2013 on your iOS or Android device, you’ll get the new Skype for Business app as an update later this year. Skype for Business mobile apps work for anyone on Lync Server 2013, Skype for Business Server 2015 and Skype for Business Online.
To ensure IT administrators can prepare their end users and organizations for this change, we’ve added our Skype for Business iOS and Android apps to our Skype for Business Preview program.
To participate in the preview, IT administrators can visit www.skypepreview.com to nominate up to four end users for iOS and four for Android to participate in the preview. Please apply by Friday, August 14, 2015 to be considered in our first batch of participants. We will begin notifying IT admins via email of their acceptance starting the week of August 17, 2015.
Posted on July 14, 2015 by David Mario Smith
At its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft gave new details on it’s Project GigJam collaboration app, which represents a fresh approach by the technology titan. GigJam will enable users to find or pull information from any or multiple business applications, share that information or parts of it with team members in a workspace metaphor. Users can keep track of processes and the tasks involved to get work done quicker.
I find GigJam to be one of the more important announcements from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. For one, the name is probably the coolest name Microsoft has come up with. Well, being the son of a Jazz musician, it just evokes emotions in me. But I digress. More importantly, this represents a new Microsoft. This is Satya Nadella’s Microsoft, which is trying to be more open and platform agnostic.
GigJam is not tied to Windows. It was built using web standards such as REST, OAuth, JavaScript, and HTML5. It also works across Android, iOS, Mac and Windows devices and PCs. It also works on large screens such as Surface. GigJam allows you to share tasks with a purpose, in which you can assign responsibilities with the right information to the right people, ensuring the proper context to get things done. Cortana capabilities will be built in to allow audio for audio comments. Every task in an application seemingly becomes an application in itself that enables multi-user collaboration. Now it’s exact release date has not be revealed, but we anticipate this will be one of the most significant Microsoft product launches.
GigJam is Nadella’s vision to move Microsoft into an innovative position of openness and breaking down proprietary barriers between the applications and devices people use to get work done. What makes GigJam important is that it could potentially cause a paradigm shift in the way collaboration and productivity applications work. We’ve seen Microsoft release Sway and Delve and is trying to address the “help people get work done” mantra of newer mobile collaboration services such as Slack. The traditional barriers to that have been proprietary islands of collaboration platforms in which Microsoft was a main culprit. Building GigJam with open standards is a huge step for Microsoft and sends an industry alert that they’re about innovating in this space.
I’ve been writing about the emerging mobile collaboration space, which is impacting collaboration and causing traditional vendors to react with new lightweight mobile offerings to support how people work. I believe GigJam is an innovative step and point in this trend that will demand a response from emerging and traditional collaboration providers. GigJam calls tasks, people, content and context to the forefront in a way that will potentially help people get work done faster and more efficiently. GigJam is at the project stage, so from now till it is officially released, I’m sure deeper details will be revealed. As an analyst, I’m usually tempered on product announcements claiming to be the next big thing and that can cure all ails, but I believe Microsoft has something here. Time will tell how well they execute though. Stay tuned!
Source: https://aragonresearch.com/gigjam-microsoft-attempts-to-redo-collaboration/
Cortana on Android has just been leaked on the internet. Few months ago, Microsoft announced that the personal assistant will be making its way to Android and iOS. The personal assistant was supposed to come to Android later this month, however, it has just been leaked and it is functional. Just like the Windows 10 version, Cortana on Android comes with all the features which are available on Windows 10. You can set reminders, check for weather, sport results, ask Cortana to tell you some jokes, etc. Here are some screenshots of Cortana running on Android:
