Hello, it's Matt. Welcome to Collaboration Coach.
In this video we're going to look at Outlook Boards
that are being added to Outlook on the Web.
I think this is the first implementation
of something we looked at last October called Project Moca
and has also been known as Outlook Spaces.
Boards will be available in Outlook on the Web but not the Outlook client
and they are a personal productivity app that integrates with your Office 365 mailbox
and with many other apps like OneNote and To Do.
So let's take a look.
You switch to boards from your calendar.
You just go to the calendar app,
you go to this view drop-down on the right-hand side
and you choose "board".
When you land on the board for the first time,
you'll see the calendar, tasks and notes widgets.
These are the key ones
as they have integration with Outlook, OneNote and To Do
and you can add others too - and we'll look at some of those later.
Let's start with calendar.
So as you'd expect, the calendar widget pulls information from your Office 365 mailbox.
I can move around the calendar
and I can page through the weeks and months
and I can change the view to agenda, four days, weekly and monthly
and I can add new events here
and I can manage the existing ones by changing the time and the duration.
I can also add other calendars to this view as well.
If I add the "My Team" calendar here for example,
I can see those meetings too but in a different colour.
Each widget that I add to the board can be resized and moved around.
For example on the calendar here
I can choose the ellipsis and choose "resize",
which gives me some handles that I can move
or I can just take my mouse to the edge of the widget and move the arrows.
When I move the calendar you can see a grid lights up behind it
and then it will snap to that grid as I move the widget around.
And I can even drop the calendar on top of other widgets.
I can add new widgets to the board using the "add to board" drop down here.
I get a list of things to add.
They can be placed on the board and I can move them around and resize them
I can select them which gives me some options on the ribbon at the top here
and I can choose the ellipsis to get most of the same options.
There are all sorts of widgets to add like weather,
clocks,
and goals look cool because you can set a due date for the goal,
and it adds it to your calendar.
But... the link it added to the goal didn't work for me.
I got a Project Moca message so I guess that needs fixing.
You can always remove the widgets as well.
I can zoom in and out of the board using my mouse wheel
or the zoom button here
and I can reset the zoom to take me back to where I started
and you can always move the board by clicking and dragging.
And you seem to be able to move the board as far away as you like.
I haven't been able to find the edge anyway,
so let me know in the comments if you have.
You could have multiple areas on the same board that you can move around between
and zoom into when you need them.
So for example, I've got a green set of widgets here for one project in one part of the board
and then I've got a blue set over here for another project.
You can also lock the view with this toggle
and when you do that, nothing can be moved or resized.
Boards has OneNote integration
so I can use the Notes widget here to capture stuff
and i can just start typing or paste something in or add an image
and whatever I add to my board it will show up in my OneNote feed.
The OneNote feed lets me reuse the things that I add as notes...
...when I'm using email or calendar or the OneNote app.
For example, if I add an image into this note widget on my board,
I can also see it if I pull down the OneNote feed panel with this button here.
What's in this feed can be used in an email
so when i'm writing a message, I can pull up the feed in the same way
and drag that image into my message.
And when I'm in OneNote I can pull up the feed
and drag things out of it onto my pages.
From the task widget I can see and add tasks.
These tasks are pulled from To Do and any emails that I flag in Outlook.
I can see the default "My Task" list, "My Day" list,
and any flagged email from this drop down here.
I can flag tasks as important
and I can right click and edit the task
and add a reminder or a due date.
Emails I flag in Outlook will show up here in the flagged emails list.
Any tasks I add with the To Do app will show up in the task list
and I can add them to My Day if that's what I'm going to work on that day.
Plus I can drag tasks from the task list straight onto the calendar
to schedule some time to get the work done.
And I can always complete the task when I'm done, to remove it.
And finally - collections can bring all your widgets together.
You can add a collection to the board and then add widgets to the collection
and then that becomes a group that can be moved around as one.
You can only add widgets to your collection vertically though
so you end up with a long line of widgets
and I think it would be nice to be able to resize the collection horizontally too.
So to sum up, I think boards are really useful.
For my own personal productivity,
I think it's good for pulling lots of separate apps and information together
so they're all in one place.
It's totally customisable so it can be anything that you want
and there's plenty of space to have different work areas
so if I have a couple of projects on the go, I can create a space for each one
and then use pan and zoom to check on them separately.
For future updates I'd love to see Planner task integration.
I'd like to be able to drop a Planner board in here as well
or I'd like to be able to see my assigned tasks and Planner in the task widget on my board.
And sharing boards would be cool too
but let me know what you think and what you'd like to see as well.
Okay, so that's my first look at Outlook boards.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
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