14 DAY TRIAL // As everybody knows already, Microsoft is betting big on Android now, not only because most of its mobile apps are available on the platform, but also because it’s one of the companies building devices running Google’s mobile operating system.
So Microsoft itself needs the Android ecosystem to grow, but at the same time, it also wants its users to be provided with the best possible experience.
This is why the company keeps improving its apps, and the mobile version of the Office productivity suite is part of Microsoft’s long-term Android commitment too.
In addition to the stable builds of Microsoft Office that users can download right now from the Google Play Store, the software giant is also providing customers with early access to new features, all through the Office Insider program.
New Office preview builds typically come with plenty of improvements, and this is the case of the update that was shipped this week. Office Insider preview build 16.0.13231.20002 is all about refining the experience with Outlook, and there’s no doubt people are going to love these improvements when they go live for production devices at some point in the coming weeks.
First and foremost, today’s update introduces calendar sync improvements, as Outlook for Android now supports importing entries even for Samsung Calendar and Google Calendar. So if you use a Samsung Android device, you can now have all your calendars in one place, as Outlook groups all of them under a single roof.
“Want to sync events between Outlook and other calendars on your Android device? Outlook for Android now supports two-way calendar sync for Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Outlook.com accounts. Events created in other calendar apps (Samsung Calendar, Google Calendar, etc.) can now be viewed/edited from Outlook and vice versa!” Microsoft explains.
Then, it’s a feature that already launched in Microsoft Outlook for consumers and which now makes its way to Outlook as part of the Office suite. Beginning with this build, users can customize the actions they see in notifications. This is something that comes in extremely handy, especially when receiving lots of emails and you don’t necessarily want to launch the app to manage them. I, for one, delete the stuff I don’t need from the lock screen, so this new update is super-useful to do this.
“Show your mail notifications some love. Customize mail notification actions by navigating to Settings > Mail > Notifications. Choose from five custom actions, like Flag or Mark Read, or remove extraneous actions, and tailor email notifications to your heart’s content,” Microsoft explains.
The third improvement concerns Microsoft Teams. As everybody knows already, the Microsoft Teams adoption has skyrocketed lately, and it’s all because more people started working remotely due to the health crisis. And with Microsoft Teams becoming a more important tool of Microsoft’s productivity arsenal, the company keeps rolling out more improvements on a regular basis.
This new update brings better integration in Outlook in order to prompt you to download Microsoft Teams when you create an online meeting that would require you to run the app. Outlook will thus automatically determine you need Microsoft Teams and get you straight to the Google Play store listing to get it on your Android device.
“Outlook will now prompt you to download Teams to your mobile device when you create an online meeting that requires Teams. This update will help you avoid last minute downloads and delays by getting Teams mobile in advance of your meeting,” Microsoft says.
Keep in mind these features are still in preview right now, but if everything goes according to the plan, they should go live for everybody rather sooner than later.