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Office 365 -- 2022 -- Planner Boards View sample image

If yous simply install Office 2022 on a unmarried desktop, yous could be excused for wondering what Microsoft has been doing for the last iii years. Other than a bit of a facelift, and some admittedly welcome added features that we kickoff reviewed in the Preview version (and won't re-hash here), for the well-nigh part it looks and acts like Part 2022. The minute you kickoff to share or piece of work with others, though, the major changes in the mode the Office system works brainstorm to announced.

Cloud-first is more than just defaulting to OneDrive

Microsoft has started using OneDrive every bit the default storage location for an increasing number of its applications, only that is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the integration of the cloud — and team-based workflows — in Office 2022. The new version features make new team-only apps Planner and Delve, as well as Sway, an innovative new presentation creation and sharing application. Existent-fourth dimension collaboration has also been added to Give-and-take, OneNote, and PowerPoint. For organizations that take standardized on Office, there is plenty to like in its newest incarnation.

Part 365 Planner & Delve

Office Delve's people view provides a handle on what everyone in your organization is working on.Office 2022 introduces two entirely new applications to support teams. Delve has been out in preview form for a while. Available to organizations with Role 365 business subscriptions, it uses the power of Microsoft's servers to let users to get an automatic view into what is likely to be important to them. Information technology does this by using data from Office Graph — substantially a complete record of every document, meeting, or email-related action taken by every user — to build a tiled dashboard of people, projects, and documents that are related to what you've been working on, or that have been shared with you.

Planner is a brand new tool that allows teams to quickly set projects and populate them with tasks and documents. Similar Delve, it then uses Office Graph to create user-specific, interactive dashboards of project status. It isn't designed to replace the heavy-lifting style of project direction done by Microsoft Projection. But for busy team members, it's a quick mode to keep rail of their involvement in many unlike projects. While Delve provides a people-focused dashboard of all Office-related activeness, Planner provides one based on projects and tasks.

In functionality, Planner is very like to another existing services, such as Trello, but because it has the reward of existence deeply integrated with Part Graph, it may become the favorite among those organizations committed to Office. On the flip side, for organizations that don't have a corporate commitment to hosted or server-based Office installations, a separate service allows more flexibility.

Office Sway

Sway offers a variety of sharing options for co-authoring and viewing but presentations are always hosted by MicrosoftFor individual users, the near heady new capability is probably Sway. Sway allows users to easily construct catchy multimedia presentations. Different PowerPoint, it doesn't rely on a slide-by-slide metaphor, and likewise moves much of the responsibility for layout fashion to the application. Users can tweak the layout themselves, or use the Remix! Button to have Sway cycle through suggestions. Although part of Office 2022, the Sway application is available from the Windows x app shop, and for the iPhone and iPad. It is also role of Office Online.

Sway presentations are easy-to-create, colorful, and wait absurd. Information technology is and then piece of cake to make them appear catchy, that I think we'll see a lot of users go overboard — the same style people went crazy with typefaces when desktop publishing was introduced. It can be very disconcerting to exist looking at a Sway presentation and having wing-in effects and panning images while yous're trying to read.

Once shared, a Sway can be viewed past anyone with a browser, although Sway presentations are e'er hosted on Microsoft's sway.com, and tin can't be off-lined or exported to some other format. That raises another issue — longevity. Microsoft doesn't have the best track record for long-term commitment to its artistic tools (remember Expression, Pic Maker, or Live Author?). Until in that location is a fashion to guarantee the long-term survival of a Sway, I encounter it beingness about effective for quick sharing.

Real-time collaboration in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote

Word 2022 features both real time typing among collaborators and Skype for business videoNot to be outdone by the rise tide of cloud-based document editors like Google Docs, Microsoft has added some very slick real-fourth dimension collaboration capabilities to Give-and-take, and similar versions to PowerPoint and OneNote. On the editing front end, not simply can ii users edit the same cloud-hosted document, but if it is on Microsoft's servers (OneDrive or Office 365, for instance) and then they can each see exactly where other users are in the document.

Microsoft adds to this adequacy past making it easy to open a Skype call (or conversation or meeting) with any of the document's authors from right within Word.

Function mobile apps

While non news — equally they've been around for a while already — Microsoft's mobile apps for Office have been the virtually chop-chop evolving function of the Office. These touch-friendly versions of Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint run on iOS, Android, and of course Windows 10. For Windows 10 users on tablets or phones, the mobile versions of the applications brand it much easier to work without a keyboard or mouse. Microsoft also has some boosted cool tools for mobile users, including my favorite mobile document scanning applications: Part Lens.

Function 365 (2016) pricing: Subscriptions become more than attractive

Microsoft has clearly realized — like Adobe before it — that getting people to pay nearly any amount per month, forever, is meliorate than relying on the whims of upgraders. So it is offering both a discounted Personal Plan ($seven/month for 1 machine and 1 phone), and a more value-oriented Home Plan ($10/calendar month for 5 computers and 5 phones). Both plans include 1TB of OneDrive storage and 60 Skype calling minutes per month — meaning you go Office essentially for free compared to a similarly-sized cloud plan from Google, for example. (Yous can compare plans in more particular at the Microsoft Role 3650 Home subscription page). Both plans include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access.

Those preferring to stick with the traditional buy licensing model can get Office 2022 (ane-fourth dimension purchase without upgrades) Home and Business for $230. Information technology includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. The Educatee and Teacher version is $150, but doesn't include Outlook. Purchased versions don't include the Skype minutes, and only feature 15GB of gratuitous storage.

Mobile-starting time, cloud-start: Does Microsoft accept it right?

Whether you utilize Ballmer's phrase "devices and services" or Nadella's "mobile-first, cloud-first," it represents the largest software pin for Microsoft since its 1990s comprehend of the web. It implies expanding its platform presence from just Windows to online and mobile, and its moving its revenue model from product licensing to cloud-based service subscriptions. Office 2022 represents Microsoft'south almost aggressive endeavour to date to make these major changes. Its services are available across almost platforms, and its acquirement is increasingly platform neutral — since it gets subscription revenue independent of which platform y'all use to access the services.

Google has been selling a very like vision with its Google Apps for Work offer, just Microsoft is bringing the world's most mature suite of productivity applications to the party. The practiced news for organizations, especially those that are long-time Office customers, is that they no longer have to choose betwixt the ability of Office and the flexibility of the cloud. With Role 2022 combined with Office 365, Microsoft is giving them the opportunity to take both.