Office 365 has been expanding into its own SaaS platform over the past couple of years and in doing so gaining countless features–so much so, in fact, that the Office team has set out to highlight its gains on a monthly basis so that customers know what’s available to them. Earlier this month, the Office team covered all of the accessibility features that had been built into the platform this month, and now they’re back highlighting a few more additions available for all users.

For the month of May, 2016, the Office team introduced real-time chat integration into Office 365 for the web, Outlook updates across various platforms, SharePoint and OneDrive business enhancements, as well as AutoCAD 2013/2010 file support for Visio Pro.

Details of the updates include:

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. Learn more about real-time chat in Office Online. 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.”

Improvements for Outlook across platform and devices

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.

Outlook on iOS and Android devices now lets you insert links to OneDrive for Business files in email (left), and in next week’s update, join Skype Meetings in one click (right).

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. 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. 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

The Office team packed a lot of new features into its May update roll out. Hopefully, customers will find the time to sift through all the additions and make use of the ones most important to them.

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