The idea is create a sense of familiarity – all the business critical apps you use on a daily basis made accessible from a single platform, and with a consistent look and feel. To achieve this Microsoft have added 2 new features: a new tabbed layout, and the ability to resize, pin, and organise tiles.
The New Tabbed Layout
“Home” Tab
The new layout lets you pin and organise apps in the “Home” section, making it quicker to find the apps you use on a daily basis. These apps can be any from your Office 365 subscription, the Office Store, Azure apps, SharePoint apps, Line of Business apps and even custom tiles added by organization administrators. For example on my app launcher Home tab, in addition to the Office stack of Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, SharePoint etc. I also have tiles that take me to LinkedIn, Google Analytics, and Google Adwords.
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“New” Tab
Recently added apps appear in the “New” tab, with notifications to let you know when they are available.
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“All Apps” Tab
The “All Apps” page has now been moved directly into the app launcher to give you quick access to all your applications, and let you search from anywhere within Office 365.
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Resize, Pin and Organise Tiles
This feature will be familiar to anyone who has experienced the Windows 10/8.1 start menus, and is designed to create the same seamless app switching experience. You can pin important apps to the home bar, and resize and rearrange them to make your most commonly used apps more prominent (or, if you’re like me, just to make the app launcher look neater – I hate clutter)..
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Colour Themes
Visually the new app launcher is more exciting because it now supports Office 365 themes, including – if you have one – your company’s custom theme. This helps to maintain consistency across the Office 365 platform and engender familiarity, and is a nice touch if, like me, you like a bit of colour in your day
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What’s Next?
Over the next few months Microsoft are planning to give users the ability to access recent PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and OneNote Online files by clicking on the icon’s ellipsis menu, so that you can access everything you need for your working done from one simple, easy to access, central location.
This isn’t the most exciting update for Office 365, but it’s good to know that Microsoft are constantly working to improve usability and productivity for its customers.
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