Microsoft announced that it is launching Office Delve to all Office 365 business customers as the company looks to make the service more personalized to the needs of each user.
Delve, which was previously codenamed Oslo, allows users to discover new and relevant information and connections within the user's work life. The information displayed on Delve depends on the kind of work that the user is doing, along with the people that the user is working with.
Delve then presents all the information to the user in a card-based design similar to Flipboard. The user also has the ability to change how and where the information is presented within the cards of the service. However, Delve still respects the permissions that are in place within the company, as users are only able to access through Delve content that they have permissions to.
Microsoft made the announcement of the launch of the service through a post on the official Office Blog written by Office 365 Technical Product Management general manager Julia White.
According to the blog post, Delve uses the capabilities of the Office Graph, which uses advanced techniques to map the connections between users, activities and content within the Office 365 of a business.
Currently, Office Graph utilizes information obtained through email, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Yammer. In the future, Office Graph will also utilize the attachments in emails, Lync and OneNote to expand and improve the information analyzed by Delve.
"Delve simply makes work more intuitive and easier to navigate. Instead of having to dig through email, search on Yammer, or explore SharePoint and OneDrive for Business to find the right stuff, you can simply use Delve to have the right information delivered to you," White wrote.
White added that Delve is only the first of many services that Microsoft will be releasing that will use the insights obtained by Office Graph to improve the workplace.
Microsoft will be rolling out Delve to Office 365 clients in phases, with the first customers receiving access to the service being those that signed up for an opt-in program that allows them to receive major Office 365 updates during the first release. Delve will then be rolled out to all the rest of the Office 365 clients over the following several months, completing the launch of Delve by early next year.
The Office 365 Technical Network will be hosting a YamJam for Delve on Sept. 10 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PDT. A YamJam is an opportunity for users to ask questions regarding Delve to Microsoft experts over the Yammer network, similar to a TweetJam on Twitter and an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.
