Determining if Outlook 2013 is Worth Upgrading
With the newest version of Microsoft Outlook being released, many companies are trying to determine if upgrading is the right decision. Although the new update is being considered as a minor improvement from 2010, there are some key new features that may help sway your organization on whether or not the upgrade is worthwhile.
Attachment Reminder
We’ve all made that mistake where we shoot an email off to find out that we forgot to add our attachment. With the attachment reminder feature, Outlook will scan the text in the email to determine whether or not there should be an attachment and will notify you if you’ve forgotten before your message is sent. For certain organizations this is a huge win, allowing them to avoid frustration and wasting time or a loss of productivity.
New Interface
The new interface for Outlook 2013 puts all the information you are looking for right at your fingertips. With the ability to preview your emails from the message list you can quickly decide which emails are urgent and need attention first. Whether you’re looking to preview your calendar, messages or even trying to search through your mail files, the new Outlook is extremely easy to use. The intuitiveness of this new interface allows you to spend less time trying to find what you’re looking for and spend more time on what’s important, your business.
Social Integration
Outlook has finally addressed the need to share information from your inbox right to your social media platforms. Coupled with the new weather updates, these features are perfect for sharing events, or business functions that are weather dependent.
Exchange 2013 Users
For organizations that have already upgraded to Exchange 2013, there are some features that are targeted towards you, for example, Outlook has replaced Mail Tips with “Policy Tips”. This will alert the user if their message sets off any policy violations prior to the email being sent out. Additionally there are some features that work alongside the Exchange 2013 Data Loss Prevention features.
First and foremost it is important to note that Office 2013 is not compatible with Windows XP, and for server users Outlook 2013 will not work with Exchange 2003. Beyond those barriers, every organization is different and should assess their systems to decide if this upgrade will make sense. From the Fuse Lab we give Outlook 2013 extremely high marks, from the Interface, intuitiveness, and the added features it makes using Outlook 2013 a pleasure to have.
