Microsoft 365 Home Page Continued

This article is the third in a series of articles focusing on Microsoft 365 basics and the second one that focuses on the Microsoft 365 home page. In case you haven’t read the first yet, here is the link to it: Link . Here, we focus on the following Microsoft 365 home page sections.

• The left pane
• The App launcher
• The search bar and
• The utility icons

Note: Your screen may differ from the one shown in Figure 1 depending on the Microsoft 365 edition you have purchased and the user role assigned to you.

Note: If you are the watch-and-learn type, there’s a video at the bottom of this article which you can skip to right now.

The left pane

The left pane groups your work, apps, and the people you communicate with in a structured manner. It contains the following icons.

• 1. Home – takes you back to the Microsoft 365 home page where ever you are.
• 2. Create – lets you create different files like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more. You can also use the pre-defined templates available under different categories – like Recommended, Presentations, Flyers, etc., - as the base for the work you are going to do.
• 3. My Content – this was covered under See all My Content within the Quick Access section. Refer article 2 to understand this better.
• 4. Feed – your feed containing your work, people you deal with, and your recent activity split into different categories.
• 5. Apps – lets you access all the apps available in your Microsoft 365 edition like Teams, Bookings, To Do, Yammer, and more. You also have the option of filtering out apps based on categories like Productivity, Utilities, Education, Communication, etc., on this screen.
• 6. Admin(available only if you are the administrator in some capacity) – lets you do behind-the-scenes work that let Microsoft 365 manage your organization. More on the Microsoft 365 admin center later.
• 7. Outlook – lets you send and receive emails among other things like viewing your work calendar, tasks, etc.,
• 8. Teams – lets you access the Microsoft Teams app and coordinate with your team.
• 9. Word – lets you create Word documents.
• 10. Excel – lets you create Excel worksheets.
• 11. PowerPoint – lets you create PowerPoint presentations.

Note:(6), (7), and (8) open in a separate tab. This can be confusing at first, but you’ll get used to it. The general rule to remember is when you open a file or an app, it usually opens in a separate tab.

Note:For now, let’s just focus on the Feed option, since it serves as a good starting point for things to come. The rest of the options will be discussed in the appropriate articles.

Feed

Like the Facebook feed, you get a curated list of your activities and the activities connected with you here. The Feed page shown in Figure 2 is split into 5 tabs and a right pane where your info and contacts get displayed.

The five tabs are:

• For you – the files people shared with you, the files you were involved with, your recent activity, and more get listed under this tab.
• Stay on top – similar info to what’s displayed in the ‘For you’ tab gets listed here. The only difference is urgent matters get priority.
• Meeting insights – displays the insights of meetings you were involved in like what was discussed, upcoming meetings list, and more.
• My network – this helps you stay connected with your organization. It displays events like birthdays, work anniversaries of your colleagues, and other such news relating to your network.
• News– by default, Microsoft’s promotional material – like news and blogs – gets listed here. You can turn this into your organization’s news-related feed.

Note: Feeds open in separate tabs when you click on them.

The right pane:

Your details and your connections get listed here. The most important aspect of this section is it lets you search for anyone in your organization. There are search recommendations too, so you don’t have to know the full name of a colleague you wish to look up.

• My activity – clicking this tab in the right pane takes you to your contact info with your Feed section opened up. Figure 3 shows Adele Vance that she’s got an ongoing meeting – Marketing Agenda Discussion – which started about 14 minutes ago and she needs to join it. The other three tabs – namely Overview, Contact, and Organization – give off more information about Adele Vance like her work phone number, email address, location, etc.,
• Favorites – clicking this tab takes you to the list of your favorite files; basically, a shortcut to the files that are most important to you.
• Connect– this lets you search for people in your organization and contact them. Figure 4 shows a search result for a user named Pradeep Gupta. As you can see, you can directly call the contact – video or audio call – by clicking the Call button. You’ll get redirected to Microsoft Teams and the call takes place there.

Note: *Depending on your Microsoft 365 subscription, you may or may not have a Manage Network option in your Feed. If you do, remember that the Manage Network section lets you Follow/Unfollow your colleagues and find out more about your network’s activities.

The App launcher

The app launcher available in your top-left corner is an alternative to the left pane – without the Feed option. When you click the app launcher, it opens up as shown in Figure 5.

What sets the app launcher apart from the left pane is that you can control what apps get displayed in your apps list by unpinning those apps you don’t use from the launcher. So basically, you can create an app list containing only those apps you frequently use and remove the rest.

Unpinning an app from the launcher

When you hover over the apps available in the app launcher, a three-dot icon appears. Clicking on it opens a menu containing three options as shown in Figure 6.

• Open in a new tab – that lets you open the app in a separate tab.
• Unpin from the launcher – that lets you unpin the app from the launcher. When you unpin the app, it gets removed from your visible apps list.
• Learn More – which gives you a brief description of what the app is about.

Note: Explore all your Apps option available at the bottom of your apps list takes you to the Apps page that was mentioned briefly while discussing the left pane.

Create

The create dropdown just below the apps list helps you create documents right from the app launcher. The list of documents you can create is shown in Figure 7.

Note:The new documents you create open in a separate tab.

Note:See all My Content is an alternate path - the first one being the one in the home page under the quick access section - to reach the My Content section in the left pane.

The search bar

The search bar available right above your recommended section performs a comprehensive organizational search. This means it searches your entire organization and brings back the results that match your search. So, if you search for ‘Adele Vance’, the search fetches not only the person ‘Adele Vance’, but also

• the documents she shared with you in various capacities like the creator, reviewer or approver, etc.
• the messages she might have shared with you via Outlook Mail or Microsoft Teams.
• her contact information
• the sites or teams she belongs to
• and more as shown in Figure 8.

Note:Microsoft 365 search bars are present across apps. But only the Microsoft 365 home page search bar performs an organization search. Others are all contextual search bars – meaning their scope of search is restricted to their app.

The search modifiers

Search modifiers are rules you can add to your search to make it more efficient. Microsoft 365 home page search bar presents you with the following search modifiers.

Search Modifier	What it does	How to use
Double quotes (“ ”)	Searches for the exact phrase you type in	Example: You may have multiple files starting with Q2 (business quarter 2). And let’s say you want only the file “Q2 2023” and exclude the rest. You can do so by typing Q2 2023 within quotes in the search bar as follows: “Q2 2023”. This gets you only that particular file.
Exclude (NOT or -)	Excludes words you type immediately after the NOT or – operator. Useful for excluding certain words from your search.	Example: Let’s say you have many documents starting with Q3 and you want to exclude only the document Q3 2023 from your search. You can do so by typing your search query as Q3 NOT 2023 or Q3 – 2023 and executing the search.
Both (AND and &)	Fetches search results based on all the words you type in. This is the default mode of operation for the Microsoft 365 home page search bar.	Example: Let’s say you want the documents Q3 Sales report. You can get them by typing: Q3&Sales or simply Q3 Sales like you would normally do.
Either (OR or |)	Fetches search results on either or basis. That is, the search results fetched will include the word before or after the operator (whichever matches what’s in your Microsoft 365 portal) or, in some cases, both (if both the search terms match what’s in your Microsoft 365 portal).	Example: In line with our previous examples, if you search for Q3 OR Sales (and you have 2 docs beginning with Q3 word), the search would fetch both the docs, since both of them contain the term Q3 in them.
Must Contain (+)	The Microsoft 365 home age search bar usually ignores helper words such as “to”, “of”, “and” etc., If you want even these helper words to be taken into account, you should include + in your search query as shown in the example.	Example: Let’s say you have two files: ‘How to use One drive’ and ‘How to share your files with your team’, and you want to search for the ‘How to use One drive’ file, then your search term should be: ‘How+to+use’. This would give ‘How to use One drive’ precedence over ‘How to share your files with your team’ in the search results.

The utility icons

The utility icons at the top right corner help you modify your Microsoft 365 portal’s theme, provide a quick view of your meetings and tasks, and let you sign out of the application.

The four utility icons you are presented with are:

• My Day that lists your Calendar (with your meetings, appointments, etc.) and To Dos (if any).
• Settings that let you personalize your overall Microsoft 365 theme among other things.
• Help that lets you search for Microsoft articles that can help you use Microsoft 365 better.
• Account Manager that lets you manage your account and sign out from the application.

My Day

My Day provides a quick overview of your day ahead with the help of two tabs:

• Calendar and
• To Do

The Calendar Tab

Clicking this icon opens your calendar schedule as shown in Figure 9. Your upcoming meetings or appointments show up. Clicking the dropdown next to the month as shown in Figure 9 gets you a month-based view of the calendar.

Note:You can also open the calendar in the Outlook app by clicking the icon next to the close button shown in Figure 9.

Note: You can also add a task for yourself right from the calendar by clicking the + Add a task due today icon. If you wish to set the due date, you can do so only in the To-Do app.

The To Do Tab

The To Do tab lists all the tasks assigned to you (by yourself or others). Just like the Calendar which opens up in Outlook, the tasks can be opened in the To-Do application by clicking the icon next to the close button.

Note:You cannot re-schedule a task here. You can only mark it as complete or important. To reschedule a task, access the task in your To-Do application.

Marking a task as complete

Check the task as shown in Figure 10. The checked tasks appear under the Show recently completed list. You can also mark a completed task as not completed by simply unchecking it.

Marking a task as important

The star icons let you mark the tasks as important. The important tasks appear as shown in Figure 11.

Settings

The settings icon helps you personalize your Microsoft 365 portal to suit your requirements. The settings menu is shown in Figure 12.

You have the following options:

• Themes– that lets you modify the overall theme of your Microsoft 365 portal by clicking the various themes being displayed.
• Language and time zone – that lets you modify your Microsoft 365 portal to reflect your local language and time zone by clicking the Change your language link.
• Dark Mode – that lets you turn on/off the dark mode for your Microsoft 365 portal using the On and Off toggle button.
• Password– that lets you change your Microsoft 365 account password by clicking the Change your password link.
• Contact Preferences – that lets you update your contact preferences by clicking the Update contact preferences link. Contact preferences let Microsoft know how you wish to be contacted by them. For example, you can opt-in for Microsoft 365 tips and suggestions via mail here, among other things.

Help

The help icon gives you access to Microsoft’s knowledge base articles. The articles get listed on a contextual basis. That means when you are on the Microsoft 365 home page, you get home page-related articles like how to use Microsoft 365 app launcher, how to use Microsoft 365 apps, etc., You also get to search for articles from this section.

Account Manager

This lets you access your account-related information. Here you can:

• View your account-related information
• Access your Microsoft 365 profile
• Sign out of the application
• Sign in with a different account (in case you have multiple accounts)

What’s Next?

With this, the basic walk-through of the Microsoft 365 home page ends. Next, let’s take a brief look at the first screen you were confronted with when you logged in – the Microsoft 365 admin center, understand what it contains and how to perform simple administrator tasks.