Microsoft is making moves to bolster Outlook across several platforms, with new features rolling out now or set to roll out in the coming months. In a new blog post this week, the Outlook team detailed new features coming to Windows, Mac, the web, and the Outlook mobile apps.
In Outlook Calendar, Outlook.com users will now get bill pay reminders based on bills you receive in your email. The feature will automatically create a calendar event on the due date and send you an email reminder two days before the bill is due.
In Outlook for Windows, you can now receive suggested event locations and meeting rooms. "Even before you start typing, Outlook offers suggestions for your meeting location, including recently used (and available) conference rooms and other common locations," Microsoft says. "Once you start to type in the location field, Outlook suggests options based on Bing and then autocompletes your meeting location with the necessary information." This feature ties in nicely with Outlook for iOS, which can use your location, destination, and traffic updates to notify you when it's time to leave for your event.
For Outlook on Windows and on the web, RSVP tracking and forwarding will let you easily track responses and RSVPs for meetings, as well as control whether calendar invitations can be forwarded.
On the Outlook Mail side of things, Outlook users on iOS can now see the details of your organization directory in your contact information. Proxy support is also now included for Outlook on iOS and Android, and Outlook for Windows users will now get a warning when they've been blind copied (Bcc) on an email and are responding.
As for what's coming soon, there are quite a few new features in the pipeline, mostly for Outlook's mobile apps. The option to sync your drafts between devices, so you can draft a message on one device and finish it on another, will hit Outlook for iOS this month (it's already available for Windows, Mac, and Android). Office Lens technology is also coming to Outlook for Android in May, allowing you to quickly capture details from things like whiteboards, documents, and photos for your emails.
Quick reply is coming to Outlook for Android in May and later this summer for Mac, while the option to tag your favorite people in your contacts is coming to Outlook for iOS and Android in June.
Those are the major new additions hitting Outlook across platforms, but there are some smaller tweaks coming as well. For more, check out Microsoft's full blog post.
