Microsoft has long reigned as the king of desktop operating systems and productivity suites. This market dominance is in no small part due to its commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. During Build 2019, Microsoft’s highly anticipated developer conference last May, they unveiled some nifty new features to Office 365 that may yet again change how everyone works.
 

Say “Hello” to passwordless access

Thanks to its FIDO2 certification, the Windows 10 Hello feature will help users log in to their laptop and their web browser accounts on Firefox and Edge by having their finger or face scanned. Hello even goes so far as to let you use your Windows 10 laptop’s fingerprint sensor or IR camera to authenticate your identity whenever a website or app asks for it. Talk about saying goodbye to using usernames and passwords!
 

Enjoy smart Ideas in Word Online

Deemed as “Microsoft Word Light” because of how much less functionality it had compared to its desktop predecessor, Word Online will soon become a heavyweight in its own right. Its artificial intelligence- (AI) powered feature called Ideas will help users fix grammar issues, offer alternative phrases to enhance clarity, make statements concise, and even promote inclusiveness (e.g., it might suggest you use the term “chairperson” instead of just “chairman”).
 
Other Ideas features include:
 
●      Time-to-Read – estimates reading times for you
●      Word Designer – allows you to style tables and document segments
●      Highlight Extraction – lets you pull highlighted text and create a new document from it
 

Imagine issuing voice commands using your own company jargon

Cortana, Microsoft’s very own voice assistant, will be able to do more than just set schedules for you whenever you tell it to. Soon, businesses will be able to create their own voice prompts, thanks to Microsoft’s nifty development kit for enterprises.
 
So far, the software giant has held a private viewing of the kit for a limited time only and has not yet announced a launch date for it.
 

Parse through your entire organization with Microsoft Search

Microsoft offers many tools for businesses of all sizes — so many, in fact, that some seem to be redundant or at least overlap function-wise with one another. For instance, larger, more established departments may use SharePoint, while newer and smaller teams might go for OneDrive first. While they work similarly with one another, these different programs will keep files in separate places.
 
Searching across data silos created via the use of disparate Microsoft programs will not be a chore, though — thanks to Microsoft Search.
 
Another way Microsoft is advancing search is by using AI to prepopulate the search app with items such as recently opened items and names of people you often share files with — all before you’ve even typed a single character.
 
Other changes to the search function include having the search box in a more prominent area on the window, now-standard features such as query history and autocomplete keyphrase suggestions, as well as organization-wide search results.
 
Search also grants IT admins visibility into the most popular searches across the entire company, but Microsoft claims it does not let them look into the search histories of individual employees.
 
Want to take advantage of the latest productivity boosters that Microsoft Office 365 has to offer? Let SimplyClouds help you power up and take your business to the next level.