Office 2010 Technical Preview: A SuperSite Special Report
Part 3: Microsoft Outlook 2010

As noted previously, Microsoft now considers email a core capability of its Office suite--a basic feature that customers simply expect--and of course that functionality is provided by Microsoft Outlook. In Office 2010, Outlook has been significantly overhauled, most obviously with the ribbon UI, which is now pervasive throughout the application.

But Outlook 2010 isn't just about adopting the ribbon. In this version, Microsoft has added a considerable number of new features, so if you're a regular Outlook users, you're going to want to take a close look at this version.

Some of the key new features available in the Technical Preview are noted here.

Conversation View

Available in Exchange 2010, Outlook Web Access (OWA), and Outlook 2010, the improved Conversation View is now the default email view. What it basically does is keep related emails together so that you can see their relationship at a click. But by hiding these related emails under the most recent message, it also keeps your inbox as clean as possible by default.

Conversation View groups related email messages together.

Clean Up Conversation

A new Clean Up tool removes the redundant parts of email messages in a message thread, allowing you to focus on only those parts of each email that are unique. In other words, this tool gets rid of all the quoted junk that takes up space in each email but doesn't provide any useful purpose, since it's just unintelligently repeated each time someone replies to the thread. To activate it, simply right-click an email conversation and choose Clean Up Conversation.

Ignore thread

Ever get involved in a never-ending email message thread that simply doesn't concern you or, at some point in time, "jumps the shark" and ceases to be useful? The new Ignore thread feature in Outlook 2010 helps you delete all current and future responses with a single click and get on with your life.

Quick Steps

The ability to perform single-step functions--things like "Delete," "Mark as read," "Reply," and so on, is very useful. But what if you regularly need to perform multi-step functions? Suppose you reply to a message and then move it to an archived email folder, something I do every day. Right now, that's a manual process. But with the new Quick Steps feature in Outlook 2010, you can easily utilize a collection of built-in multi-step tasks. And you can create your own.

Quick Steps appear in the Outlook ribbon and let you perform multi-step actions with a single click.

Quick Steps are found in the Quick Steps group in the Outlook 2010 Home tab. There are 10 pre-built Quick Steps, you can define and modify any Quick Steps through a Manage Quick Steps interface.

MailTips

A new Exchange 2010/Outlook 2010 feature called MailTips alerts you when you're about to send an inappropriate email message. This could be a large distribution list, people who are known to be out of the office (courtesy of Exchange), or recipients outside of your workgroup, where you might be inadvertently sharing confidential information. MailTips requires Exchange 2010 and is centrally configured for businesses through that server product.

But wait, there's more ...

Outlook 2010 will support the use of multiple Exchange accounts, so you can manage several accounts in a single location. There's a new People pane, with an unfinished UI in the Technical Preview, that provides at-a-glance access to your contacts with the ability to hover over them an initiate tasks. And a new version of Outlook for mobile devices, called Mobile Outlook 2010, will bring many Outlook 2010 features to Windows Mobile-powered smart phones.

Continue with Part 4, Microsoft Word 2010...

--Paul Thurrott
June 30 - July 13, 2009

Special Report: Office 2010 Technical Preview

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Improving Office
Part 3: Outlook 2010
Part 4: Word 2010
Part 5: Excel 2010
Part 6: PowerPoint 2010
Part 7: But Wait, There's More

Related Reading:
Office 2010

Office 2010 Beta: Introduction
Office 2010 Beta: User Experiences
Office 2010 Beta Preview
Outlook PST: Open for Business
SharePoint 2010 Preview
OWA: Is It Enough?
Office Web Applications TP
Office 2010 Technical Preview
Office 2010 Tech Preview Screens
Office 2010 FAQ
Office 14 Web Apps Preview