Office Online—chat with your co-editors in real-time
We recently announced the ability for co-editors to chat with one another directly within a OneDrive document when working in Office Online. Today, we’re pleased to extend this capability to our Office 365 Business and Education customers for documents stored in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. Built on the same technology as Skype for Business, the new chat feature is available in all the Office Online applications—Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote.
How to initiate a chat
When you share a document from OneDrive or SharePoint Online with your co-workers or classmates, they can view, make edits and even co-author with you in real-time. When multiple people are in the document at the same time, their names appear in the list of co-editors at the top right of the browser window. Next to the list of co-editors, you’ll see a blue Chat button (shown below).
Chat in real-time while working with others in Office Online.
Real-time chat is integrated with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Online.
Use emoticons to liven up your conversations.
When to chat and when to add document comments
Use Chat when you want to communicate with others immediately, for example, to ask a quick question or divide sections among the co-editors. Chat history is not saved when you close the document but can be copied and pasted if desired. Use Comments (on the Review tab on the ribbon) when you want to attach a comment to a specific selection within the document, such as when you need to ask if a word or phrase should be changed. Comments are saved with the document and can be replied to, marked as done or deleted.
That’s all for now. We’re constantly working to improve Office Online and add new features. Leave a comment below or add new feature suggestions to our UserVoice sites for Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote.
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Try the OneDrive app for Windows 10 on your PC to access all your files
We’re continually working on making the OneDrive experience on Windows 10 even better. Today, we’re releasing an update that brings the OneDrive app to your Windows 10 PC and the Surface Hub─a top requested feature on our UserVoice forum.
The new OneDrive sync client already comes pre-installed on Windows 10 PCs, allowing users to easily access their synced files through File Explorer. But this new app is a great touch-friendly complement to sync that lets you open, edit and share any of your personal or work files without having to sync them to your device.
Additional features previously only available in the browser experience are also available, such as restoring files from the Recycle Bin, easily dragging and dropping files to the app to upload them, quickly accessing recent documents─which will open directly in the Office applications on your computer─finding files shared with you by others and more.
This update delivers OneDrive experiences to even more devices, and we will bring other capabilities to this platform over time. As we announced last week, this app will also provide an easy and lightweight way to access your company’s SharePoint libraries, and we look forward to sharing additional details on what else we’re working on very soon.
In the meantime, make sure Windows 10 is up-to-date and head on over to the Store to download the app.
This month, our updates to Office 365 include real-time chat integration into Office 365 web experiences, as well as new capabilities in Outlook and Visio. We also cover key announcements for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business made earlier this month.
Real-time chat in Office 365 web experiences for commercial customers
Last month, we announced deeper integration of Skype for Business into Word and PowerPoint for Windows desktop. Now for commercial customers we’re integrating real-time chat into Office Online—the web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Simply click the blue Chat button to start a conversation with everyone editing in the browser at the same time, for any document stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.
We’re also rolling out Skype for Business chat within Outlook on the web. Click the Skype icon in the top navigation bar to access contacts, search your organization and start a chat alongside your Outlook mail and calendar experience. You can also begin conversations by clicking the IM button in a person’s contact card.
Outlook updates across platforms
We have a number of updates coming this month to Outlook, helping you stay on top of what matters and get stuff done on all your devices—even your wearables!
Watch face support for Outlook for Android Wear—Outlook on Android Wear already lets you interact with notifications, read email and reply with preset messages or voice dictation. In next week’s update, you will be able to stay on top of your day with a quick glance at the Outlook watch face. See your schedule overlaid on the dial and get details on upcoming events. It will also be easier to manage your inbox with a view of how many new emails you have and who they’re from before diving in to the details with a single tap. You can even personalize your watch face color to fit your style for the day.
Improved language support for Outlook for Mac—Outlook 2016 for Mac now supports Arabic and Hebrew and provides right-to-left language support. We’ve also introduced a new editor with enhanced formatting support, addressing a top request from customers.
OneDrive and Skype for Business integration in Outlook for iOS and Android—Collaborate on documents more easily in Outlook by emailing a link to a file stored in OneDrive for Business, keeping all the recipients on the same page with the latest version. Coming in next week’s update, you’ll be able to quickly join Skype Meetings in one tap from Outlook’s event details view.
Pre-populated attachments in Skype Meetings—Files you attach to a Skype Meeting request in Outlook 2016 or Outlook on the web now automatically load into the Skype Meeting document bin as soon as participants join. Cloud attachments automatically assign permissions to meeting attendees. That way everybody can collaborate during the Skype Meeting. Learn more about preloading attachments into Skype for Business meetings.
SharePoint and OneDrive for Business enhancements for Office 365
Earlier this month, we unveiled our new cloud-first, mobile-first vision and roadmap for SharePoint. We’ve already started rolling out some of those improvements to help empower people, teams and organizations to intelligently discover, share and collaborate on content from anywhere and on any device.
It’s simpler and more powerful to share files and collaborate from any device. Now you can use OneDrive for iPhone and iPad to seamlessly share, edit and take offline any files stored in SharePoint document libraries, Office 365 groups and OneDrive for Business. On the web, you can copy files from OneDrive for Business to a SharePoint team site or Office 365 group. The new Discover view in both the web and OneDrive for Android helps files find you, minimizing search time with recommendations powered by the Office Graph. We’ll expand these capabilities to more platforms later this year.
We’re also updating SharePoint to make your intranet more mobile, intelligent and personalized. The new SharePoint mobile app will provide full-fidelity, on-the-go access to your company content, sites and apps—available on iOS by the end of June and on Android and Windows later this year. In Office 365 on the web, we’ve renamed Sites to SharePoint and we now provide a modern, new SharePoint home page with access to team sites, search and views into activity across your teams and organization. SharePoint document libraries and lists (coming soon) have a simple and familiar new look based on OneDrive, while still offering intuitive access to the rich content management and customizability of SharePoint. Soon we’ll integrate PowerApps and Microsoft Flow directly into SharePoint. Stay tuned for more!
AutoCAD 2013/2010 file support in Visio Pro for Office 365
Over 12 million people use Visio to visually communicate complex information, document business processes and more. Now Visio Pro for Office 365 customers can insert and open the latest AutoCAD 2013 and 2010 file formats. Architects, engineers, operations teams and others can collaborate more effectively on AutoCAD design documents in Visio with capabilities such as co-authoring, commenting and annotation. You can even add data on top of your layout and design to provide operational insights. For example, import an AutoCAD diagram of a building and add people and facilities to the floor plan to more easily track resources or simply highlight key architectural information to share with others. Sign up for a free webcast on July 12 to learn more about using Visio to collaborate on AutoCAD files.
Learn more about what’s new for Office 365 subscribers this month at: Office 2016 | Office for Mac | Office Mobile for Windows | Office for iPhone and iPad | Office on Android. If you’re an Office 365 Home or Personal customer, be sure to sign up for Office Insider to be the first to use the latest and greatest in Office productivity. Commercial customers on both Current Channel and Deferred Channel can also get early access to a fully supported build through First Release. Thanks for your continued feedback and support!
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Changes to OneDrive
One Drive has announced it will be changing the amount of free storage it offers, as well as the discontinuation of the 15 GB camera roll bonus. Below is a message from the OneDrive team on more details about the upcoming changes, what they mean for you, and how you can learn more:
"We want to let you know about some upcoming changes to OneDrive. On August 10, 2016, the amount of storage that comes with OneDrive will change from 15 GB to 5 GB. We are also discontinuing the 15 GB camera roll bonus. You can learn more at our FAQ.
If you'd like to check your account, you can visit the Storage page.
We realize these are big changes to a service you rely on. We want to apologize for any inconvenience they may cause you. We made a difficult decision, but it's one that will let us sustainably operate OneDrive into the future.
SharePoint Server 2016 is available today. If you’ve been evaluating the IT Preview and later releases since August, you’re aware of foundational updates we’ve made to SharePoint Server. For SharePoint admins this means improved provisioning and update management, new compliance tools to protect data and hybrid architectural options to link SharePoint Server 2016 with Exchange Server 2016 and Office 365. With today’s release, we’ve added a number of new capabilities based on your feedback.
In this demonstration, Bill Baer from the SharePoint team highlights what’s been added since January’s Release Candidate; Durable Links to ensure file links work even if you rename or change the location of a file, new admin experiences and the most recent additions for configuring hybrid solutions with Office 365 services.
Those are just highlights of what’s new. To learn more, check out the reviewer’s guide or download and evaluate SharePoint Server 2016.
Please join us May 4, 2016 for a live online event to see and hear more about SharePoint Server 2016. Jeff Teper, CVP for OneDrive and SharePoint, will present the vision and roadmap for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business, both on-premises and in the cloud with Office 365. Following the keynote will be a number of sessions detailing what’s new and noteworthy for admins, developers and users—along with sneak peek demos of what’s coming—be sure to register today.
Earlier this year we announced real-time co-authoring support for Word 2016 as part of the Office 2016 Preview. For the last several months, this feature has been available to preview users co-authoring Word documents stored on SharePoint Online. Today, we are pleased to announce that real-time co-authoring is also available as a first-look for Word documents stored on OneDrive as part of the latest Office 2016 Preview release.
Now when two or more users running the latest preview open the same Word document from OneDrive, they can co-author with others in real-time, which allows them to see the cursor location and text edits made by the other users automatically appear as they happen.
You are encouraged to try real-time co-authoring on OneDrive today. If you are receiving regular updates throughout the preview, you should have received this functionality as an update by 11 a.m. this morning.
To try out this feature, all you need is a Word document stored on OneDrive and two or more people running the latest preview. Make sure to give both users edit permissions so they can both edit the file. If this is the first time you’ve tried real-time co-authoring, you will see a prompt in the upper right corner of Word asking you if you’d like to automatically share your changes.
All you need to do is click Yes to join the experience. Once both authors have clicked Yes, you’ll see a flag representing the other author’s cursor position and then you will automatically see their edits come in.
You're no longer tied to the OneDrive folder -- you can grab files from any folder on your PC.
As Written by: Sarah Jacobsson Purewal on: cnet.com
Face it -- cloud storage services have made our lives way more convenient. There's nothing quite like being able to save a file in a folder and then instantly have access to that file from a completely different computer.
Well, if you're a OneDrive user, you can now use OneDrive to "fetch" files that aren't saved in your OneDrive folder -- all you have to do is make sure the computer you want to grab a file from is turned on and connected to the Internet.
This feature works in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, but is not supported in Windows 8.1 -- Windows 8.1 computers will be able to fetch files from other computers, but other computers will not be able to fetch files from a Windows 8.1 computer.
Set up fetching
Before you can use the fetch feature, you'll need to set it up. To do this, you will need to have OneDrive installed on your PC.
1. Right-click the OneDrive icon in your system tray and click Settings
2. A window will pop up. Under the Settings tab, check the box next to Let me use OneDrive to fetch any of my files on this PC.
3. Click OK.
Fetch files
Once you've set up fetching on a computer, you can access all of the files on that computer -- whether they're saved in your OneDrive folder or not -- from your OneDrive account. Here's how to do that:
1. Make sure the PC you want to access is turned on and connected to the Internet.
2. Open up a Web browser and log in to OneDrive. You can only access files from a Web browser -- not from the desktop application.
3. In your OneDrive account, you should see a section on the left side labeled PCs. Here, you will see all of the PCs that are associated with your OneDrive account. Click the name of the PC you want to access.
4. If this is the first time you're accessing this PC, you'll see a security check. In order to prove you have access to this PC, you must sign in with a security code. Click Sign in with a security code to receive a security code via text message or email. Once you get your code, enter it and click Submit.
5. You will now see all of the files on the connected PC -- not just the files in your OneDrive.
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OneDrive for Business update on storage plans and Next Generation Sync Client
By Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for OneDrive and SharePoint as written on blogs.office.com
Today, I’d like to share an update on our OneDrive for Business storage plans, the availability of our Next Generation Sync Client and several other new capabilities we’re delivering in our December update.
Storage plans
Office 365 customers on our premium Enterprise, Government and Education plans will receive OneDrive for Business unlimited storage. Specifically, this includes unlimited storage for individuals in organizations with more than five people subscribing to one of the following plans:
Office 365 Enterprise E3, E4 and E5
Office 365 Government E3, E4 and E5
Office 365 Education
OneDrive for Business Plan 2 and SharePoint Online Plan 2
We will begin rolling out increased storage to these customers by the end of this month, starting with an automatic increase from 1 TB to 5 TB per user. We expect this rollout to complete by the end of March 2016. After this point, customers who want additional storage can request it as needed by contacting Microsoft support.
Customers on all other Office 365 Enterprise, Business and standalone plans that include OneDrive for Business will continue to receive 1 TB of storage per user. While customers on these plans will not receive the full unlimited benefit, we expect it will serve the vast majority of users. Today, most OneDrive for Business users consume significantly less than 1 TB.
Overall, we have taken too long to provide an update on our storage plans around OneDrive for Business. We also recognize we are disappointing customers who expected unlimited storage across every Office 365 plan, and I want to apologize for not meeting your expectations. We are committed to earning your business every day by delivering a great productivity and collaboration service and improving our communication approach.
Next Generation Sync Client for Windows and Mac
After a successful preview program, we are happy to report that the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is now available for deployment. Our top priorities for this release were improved reliability and performance, as well as delivering core capabilities such as selective sync, support for large files up to 10 GB in size and removing the 20,000 file sync limit. For IT Professionals, we’ve provided the ability to silently deploy and configure the client on behalf of your end users. The OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is available for Windows 7, 8 and 10 (8.1 support will be added in the first quarter of 2016) and Mac OS X 10.9 and above. The Windows client is available today with the Mac client being available before the end of December 2015.
With this first release, the Next Generation Sync Client supports OneDrive for Business only, but we will add support for SharePoint document libraries in future releases. In the interim, if customers require sync for both OneDrive for Business and SharePoint document libraries, the Next Generation Sync Client is designed to work side-by-side with the existing sync client.
Additionally, we are actively working on other important features including Office integration to support the co-authoring of documents and sharing scenarios (planned for the second quarter of 2016), as well as a more seamless experience for users who are migrating from the existing sync client (planned for the first quarter of 2016).
Mobile updates
In addition to updates on our desktop offerings, we have several improvements for our mobile apps. First, we recently released a new OneDrive app for Windows 10 Mobile. This app offers all the essential capabilities to view, edit, delete, share and upload files onto both your personal OneDrive and OneDrive for Business storage services.
Users can easily manage their files and folders on their Windows 10 Mobile device.
A range of required actions such as view, edit, delete and share are available for the user.
We are also happy to announce the OneDrive for iOS app will support offline storage. You can selectively flag files for local availability and open them when disconnected. The updated app will be available before the end of December 2015. We first released offline storage on Android in September 2015 and will take this same capability to Windows 10 Mobile in the second quarter of 2016.
You can select one or more files to take offline.
All offline files can be accessed through a single view.
Lastly, Office Lens for iOS now supports uploading your content directly into OneDrive for Business. Office Lens is essentially a mobile scanner that lets you to take pictures of printed documents, business cards, expense receipts and even whiteboards, with automated cropping, trimming and searching of those images. We will add OneDrive for Business support to Android and Windows 10 Mobile in the first quarter of 2016.
Use the whiteboard capture feature to store all meeting notes in OneDrive for Business.
Access whiteboards, business cards and photos quickly and easily.
New capabilities for developers
We are also releasing exciting new value for developers. First, we created a new OneDrive for Business API that allows developers to programmatically access OneDrive for Business files. The API includes support for thumbnails, search, large file upload and sync changes. Developers can write directly to the OneDrive for Business API or access it via the Microsoft Graph. We also provided new tools and SDKs for Universal Windows, iOS and Android—including support for simple “file picker” integration that enables import and export of OneDrive for Business content. Finally, we released an updated preview of a JavaScript Picker SDK for web app file management. All developer tools and documentation can be found on the new OneDrive developer portal.
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