Tips for Adopting the Outlook Web Experience

In this article, you will learn about three features that are part of the Microsoft Outlook web app to help your team adopt the upcoming 'NEW' Outlook desktop experience. 

Microsoft is set to consolidate its three mail apps into a single, unified experience over the next few years. Earlier this year, Microsoft 365 users were given the chance to try the NEW Outlook desktop app which is based on the Outlook web app. 

The ‘NEW’ Outlook in Office 365 is still in beta and won’t be replacing the ‘classic’ desktop experience you’ve grown up with for a little while yet. It’s coming. 

To help you and your team prepare for the coming changes, here are a few tips that are unique to the Outlook for Windows app. Some of them are already available in the “New” Outlook, while others we are expecting to see down the road. 

Tip #1: Get Familiar with the ‘My Day’ Panel 

‘My Day’ is a slide-out panel that shows your calendar and tasks (via Microsoft To Do) anywhere you are in Outlook.   

This feature is one of the reasons I fully switched to the Outlook web-based app back in 2019. This simple panel offers more functionality than it looks at first glance. 

The panel is split into two tabs: calendar and tasks. 

The Calendar tab offers a calendar widget that can switch between weekly and monthly views. Below that is your entire upcoming schedule, where you can view meeting details, join Teams meetings, add new meetings, and more. 

My favorite party trick is dragging emails into the calendar, and turning them into events. These events contain the entire body of the email, so whether you're planning a meeting or blocking time to get work done – you'll have all the context you need at your fingertips.  

Clearly, I’m the life of a party with tricks like this. 

The My Day panel is also deeply integrated with Microsoft To Do, allowing you to create and complete tasks without leaving your inbox. This includes quick access to your custom lists and smart lists. 

While you can also drag emails into the My Day panel to turn them into tasks, I prefer to add tasks on the Calendar view. These tasks will automatically be added to the default “Tasks” list, as well as be added to the ‘My Day’ smart list, with [today] as the due date. If you cannot finish the task today, it will still be waiting for you tomorrow. 

Lastly, the My Day panel is available in the NEW Outlook if you wish to try it there too. From my testing, it works the same as the web app. 

Tip #2: Keep Your Inbox Clean with the ‘Sweep’ Tool 

Have you ever wanted an assistant that can help automatically sort inbound emails as they hit your inbox? In ‘classic’ Outlook, we used rules to help us with this, but I’ve personally always found them complicated to set up.  

In the Outlook app, we have Sweep. This tool helps create simple rules that are used to automatically move emails from a specific email address, like Gmail/yahoo to any of your Outlook folders.  

Here’s a quick breakdown of how they work: 

My favorite use-case of the sweep tool is to move noisy ‘reminder’ emails from enterprise applications, into a dedicated folder. For example, emails that inform me that I have a new task assigned to me, or a due date approaching does not have much value to me after 24 hours.  

To address this, I have two Sweep actions: 

1. Move all emails from the application’s ‘No Reply’ email address to a specific folder 
2. In that folder, delete any emails older than 10 days 

I prefer to reserve my Outlook inbox for important stuff, such as emails from clients, upcoming meetings, and updates on the staff lunch event. Not only does the Sweep tool allow me to keep the noise out of my inbox, but it also helps me keep my folders clean. 

Lastly, you can view and manage your recurring sweep actions from Outlook settings in one of two locations:  

• Sweeps that move emails from one folder to another can be found under Settings > Mail > Rules 
• Sweeps that delete emails can be found under Settings > Mail > Sweep 

The Sweep tool is available to try in the NEW Outlook too.  

Tip #3: Access Certain Applications from the App Bar Without Leaving Outlook 

While Microsoft Teams will hold the crown for a number of 1st and 3rd party apps it supports, the Outlook web experience comes with a few of its own tricks. Microsoft 365 apps including Microsoft To Do, Viva Engage, and Microsoft Bookings can be accessed without leaving Outlook. 

Note that not ALL the applications shown will open in Outlook. For example, OneDrive, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and OneNote will all open in a new web browser tab when selected from the apps page. 

This functionality is not fully available in the ‘NEW’ Outlook at the time of writing this article. The app bar is present, but it will only open apps in your default browser. 

These tips are some of the things that helped me fully adopt the Outlook web experience years ago. As Microsoft is set to make this the definitive experience for all users and platforms, there has never been a better time to get a head start and try it yourself.