Tuesday, November 24, 2015

New Office 365 File Sharing Features in Outlook 2016

With the release of Office 2016 with Office 365, there are new amazing simple features that have been added to the service that will change the way you share Office documents. Sometimes it is these little things have huge impact on how you collaborate.

Up to this point, when you want to share files via email or SharePoint you have had to take a number of steps to share that file. In that past, if you need to solicit feedback on an Office file you have had to take clumsy steps to get that feedback. Sometimes people will take that file, rename, edit it and then email that file back to you. Then you are stuck with multiple versions of a file and you need to bring in all the comments from people back into your file. Worse yet, people will review the wrong versions of the file. You can resolve this issue by simply putting the file in SharePoint however sometimes configuring SharePoint to share a file can be a chore.

So what has changed?

Let’s look at some of these new features.

In Office 2016 there is a new Share button. All you need to do is save your Word, Excel or PowerPoint file to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint. Then press the Share button in Office 2016. You have the ability to select who you want to share the file with, what permissions they have and provide them a message. If you noticed, you no longer need to open a browser to OneDrive for Business, SharePoint or even an email application (Outlook) to share that file; the entire sharing experience is done through Office 2016. Awesome!

Plus moving you can see all the people who have access to the file and modify their permissions right there inside of Office 2016. You do not need to leave Office and navigate to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint to change the permissions making life really easy.

Plus if other people are co-authoring you will see their changes in real-time. Very cool.

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Additionally in Office 2016 there is a new Share a Link option. Once you have saved your file to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint, you can press the Share button and get a link to the file right out of Office 2016. You can then provide that link out to a broader audience through whatever mechanism you want versus having to type in tons of names.

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Another really simple option you have is in file explorer you can right click on a OneDrive for Business or SharePoint file and click the Share button. This will open the browser where right to the location so you can share that file.

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Now let’s pivot the conversation over to some new awesome options available in Outlook 2016 that help you with sharing email file attachments.

First thing you should know about is new capability added to the Attach File button in Outlook 2016. You no longer need to dig around to find the file you were just editing. If the file is saved to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint, you will see that file immediately to easily attach it to your email. Even better, the list is cross device smart. So if you built the file on one device and then try to email it from a different device, you will see that file as a recent edited file for attachment. Frankly I love the ability of not having to go back to SharePoint through the browser to find the file; I can stay in Outlook 2016.

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Now here is where things start to get really cool.

Once you have the file from OneDrive for Business or SharePoint attached, you have the ability to set the permissions of the file right there inside of Outlook 2016. Wow! Before I would have to go the location where the file was stored, set the permissions and then come back to Outlook and complete sending of the email. Now I just change the permissions right there on the spot as I am selecting the names of the people that I want to email the file to.

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In conclusion these simple examples of new capabilities added to Office 2016 will change the way you share and collaborate with Office documents.

References

https://blogs.office.com/2015/10/05/share-with-the-click-of-a-button-in-office-2016/

https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/

https://blogs.office.com/2015/11/09/attachments-in-outlook-2016-ready-for-collaboration/

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