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Microsoft Office 365 Updates – October 2017
Our guest blogger Ian Hill, Vuzion discusses this month’s updates to Office 365. Microsoft seems to have taken particular care in enhancing group experiences; be this through collaborative team projects or presentations.
Presentation Translator
Presentation Translator is one of the exciting new features that has sprung up from the Microsoft Garage, a place where all employees seek creative solutions to problems they face in daily tasks.
Presentation Translator allows users to add subtitles to PowerPoint presentations in real time. It can directly translate from the 10 most common languages, or can perform text translations from more than 60 languages in total.
Furthermore, Microsoft understands that, when giving a presentation, not everyone speaks the same foreign language. Therefore, each audience member can access unique translations from different devices to the one you are using.
Finally, if you are addressing an audience and would simply like to translate the entire slide of text into a different language, then Microsoft can automatically translate this for you.
Download Presentation Translator Add-In
Support for 3D Objects
Microsoft has now announced the capability to import 3D objects into Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and it works in the same way that you would go about importing a regular image.
The feature was initially mentioned back in December 2016 and has grown into something very advanced and practical in the intervening months. You can access a whole archive of other 3D models which have been produced by contributors from all over the world.
An exciting aspect of this feature is the ability to add one angle of the model on one slide, and then another angle on a second slide; Powerpoint then creates a smooth cinematic transition between the two.
Learn more about using 3D Models and see a full tutorial
PowerPoint Live Survey
Live Survey is an exciting new feature that has been incorporated into Microsoft PowerPoint, as a means to encourage higher levels of engagement from the audience.
You simply pause your presentation at the relevant slide and go ahead and create a question, along with 3 or 4 multiple choice answers.
The audience can then scan a QR code on their smartphone and select their answer. You then choose the format for how you would like the answers to be displayed.
It is a valuable tool to gather real-time feedback from your audience, or to assess their understanding of a given topic.
Download PowerPoint Live Survey Add-On on the Microsoft app store
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft is regularly updating Excel’s Get and Transform functions, and you can stay up to date with these regular changes on the Office Blog.
Notable changes for October include updates to the split column commands and adding “columns by example”. This feature marks further developments in the intelligence of Excel as it allows you to alter entire columns of data by merely giving a suggestion of the outcome you would like to see.
Power BI on iOS
Back in August, Microsoft issued updates on how users can view Power BI on mobile devices.
The team responsible have now improved this functionality by allowing filters for reports on iOS, which allows you to quickly remove unnecessary data from your reports.
Apps for Outlook
If you are an Android user, you can now access apps directly within your outlook.com and Office365 Commercial email accounts.
This update allows Android users to gain access to a number of much-loved apps within their outlook accounts which, previously, only iPhone users were able to access. These popular apps include Evernote, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Translator, Nimble, Smartsheet and Trello.
Alongside this, there are a number of new add-ins which are being rolled out across both Apple and Android devices, including Wrike, MeisterTask and Gfycat.
Teams Guest Access
Within the 6 months since its launch, more than 100,000 organisations have used Team to improve upon their group activities. Now, Microsoft is allowing all Office365 Commercial and Education customers to involve guests in the projects they are working on.
This guest access has been designed around three core principles: teamwork, security and compliance, and IT manageability. Together, they hope this will enable companies to continue to benefit from this fantastic team environment safely and effectively.
Yammer
Microsoft has now rolled out the ability for everyone involved in a Yammer chat to share GIFs. From their studies, they have found that GIFs are a great way to allow members of an organisation to feel more involved, so consider this an important feature to have.
However, they understand that the work environment is different from a personal environment, so all GIFs available have had a G rating filter applied, in order to make sure they meet professional standards.
Read also Ian’s other latest Microsoft’s product updates:
Microsoft Azure Latest Updates – October 2017