Microsoft’s new Fluid Office paperwork are coming to life in Teams, OneNote, and extra

The largest change to Microsoft’s Office paperwork in a long time is coming to life quickly, as the corporate’s Fluid framework arrives in Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Outlook, and Whiteboard. Microsoft first unveiled Fluid final yr, displaying how the framework permits blocks of Office content material to reside independently throughout the online. That thought is now changing into a actuality, with collaborative content material that may be copied, pasted, and shared with others.

Instead of tables, graphs, and lists which are static and certain to particular paperwork, Fluid elements are collaborative modules that exist throughout totally different purposes. They will start displaying up in Microsoft Teams first this summer time, embeddable in conferences and chats.

The launch of Fluid paperwork coincides with staff returning to their places of work and the rise of a brand new hybrid work expertise. “We were excited about going hard and fast with Fluid, and then the pandemic hit,” says Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365, in an interview with The Verge. “So we largely put a lot of our energy onto Teams, and we think of Teams as the scaffolding that creates the connection, but now as we move back to hybrid, we increasingly believe we need more innovation in what I call the canvas that gets collaboration done.”

What Microsoft has created with Fluid is the largest change to Office in a long time. While Fluid appeared like an ideal future-facing idea throughout its reveal final yr, watching Microsoft exhibit it this week has actually highlighted how transformative this could possibly be.

Every Microsoft Teams assembly will quickly include a built-in notes expertise that’s collaborative. Notes will present up inside a Teams assembly or in an Outlook calendar, and anybody on the invite can simply begin typing away in actual time. If you add a process, it instantly syncs to your different duties throughout Microsoft 365, and the assembly notes are mechanically synced to your Outlook calendar the place you may as well edit them in actual time.

“We want collaboration to be able to start before the meeting starts, so as soon as the invite goes out,” explains Ron Pessner, a director of program administration engaged on Fluid at Microsoft. As the assembly notes on this specific instance are reside and actual time, you possibly can even copy them into an app like OneNote and also you’ll nonetheless see everybody making edits to them.

This residing Fluid element has the potential to shift how everybody will get work completed throughout Microsoft Teams and Office. It’s impressively fast, with no sync time, identical to Google Docs. Microsoft has had comparable collaboration instruments in Office for some time now, however they’ve been restricted to static paperwork and nothing on this stage of freedom.

“We’re going to be launching the components in Teams this summer,” says Pessner. The assembly notes expertise will likely be accessible in preview later this yr, alongside some assessments integrating it into the desktop model of Outlook. It’s doubtless that as we see Fluid elements roll out, they’ll seem first in Teams and on the net components of Office earlier than making their approach to desktop.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft can also be reworking its Whiteboard app right into a canvas to host Fluid elements. Whiteboard has lengthy existed as Microsoft’s first large collaborative software, and this summer time it’s being overhauled with the assistance of Fluid.

New collaboration cursors will seem in Whiteboard, letting you see coworkers’ additions to a doc in actual time. There’s even a brand new digital laser pointer that you should use to get individuals’s consideration, or response stickers to make the Whiteboard canvas really feel a bit of extra alive.

Fluid elements like tables or process lists will also be embedded into Whiteboard, and the complete app will now feel and look the identical throughout all gadgets and platforms. With Whiteboard, you could possibly nearly use the app as a dashboard to look at colleagues modifying Fluid elements in actual time.

This is simply the beginning of Fluid making its approach to Microsoft 365, and we’re certain to see extra over the course of this yr and past. It will likely be notably attention-grabbing to see how Microsoft integrates Fluid extra deeply into each Teams and Outlook, the principle communications instruments utilized by companies that depend on the Office suite. If Microsoft will get the combination of Fluid proper, it would eternally change the way in which paperwork are created, shared, and, finally, how work will get completed.