Feature update on Group Conversations in Outlook

As a collaborative tool, Office 365 has a feature called Office 365 Groups to collect resources to share with group members. Office 365 Groups allows the option to consolidate conversations, calendar items, files, and tasks. The feature integrates with existing Microsoft products like Outlook, Yammer, Teams, SharePoint, and Planner. When a user is part of a group, all emails and meeting invites are sent directly to the user’s inbox and stored in the group folder.

Conversations in Office 365 Groups in Outlook happen in the shared inbox for the group. Users can participate in discussions and activities within the Outlook client as each conversation appears separately in the message list. The message itself is displayed as a conversational stacked thread and can be responded to directly.

With the Version 1712 (Build 8827.2148) update released by Microsoft on January 2018 through the Office 365 Monthly Channel, it included a feature update for improvements to Office 365 Group conversation. A user can read and reply to group conversations by opening the group message in its own window when the option to do so was not previously available.

Benefits to the feature update includes the following:

• If the conversation has been ongoing and accumulated large amounts of response, users has option to review previous content without the limitation to the reading pane.
• Ability to search within single conversation when opened in its own window
• Ability to compare contents in multiple/separate threads via side-by-side viewing
• Addresses personal viewing preference

Microsoft continues to develop Office 365 features and expand capabilities to meet business desires. Office 365 Groups is a great tool for collaboration between many users. Learn more about Office 365 Groups by visiting the Microsoft Support page. With the voices from many customers requesting the option to open conversations in new window, Microsoft addressed it in the recent update.

If you need further assistance with the feature update on Group Conversations, you can reach out to us by filling the form below.