Volume 22 Issue 13

Today's Highlights:

• Focused Inbox is not available in Outlook
• New Office 365 App: Microsoft To-Do
• Solution: Outlook.com's Company names missing in Contacts
• Remove Email Signature from Message using VBA

Focused Inbox is not available in Outlook

Several users (myself included), have noticed that Outlook desktop doesn't show the Focused and Other tabs for some accounts. It's not that the Focused Inbox is turned off, the Focused Inbox button is missing from the View tab.

This happens because the tenant is not enabled for Modern Authentication. (Two-factor auth is not required on the accounts, but Modern Auth needs to be enabled on the tenant.)

The administrator will need to enable modern auth using PowerShell.
To check the setting or verify that the change was successful use this cmdlet:

Get-OrganizationConfig | ft name, *OAuth*

If OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled is False, the administrator can turn it on using this cmdlet:

Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled:$true

After enabling modern auth, it may take several minutes for the focused inbox to be enabled, or you can restart Outlook and focused inbox should be available almost immediately.

New Office 365 App: Microsoft To-Do

Microsoft released a new Office 365 app this week: Microsoft To-do. This app merges features from Wunderlist into Office 365. To-Do's added in the app will sync with the Exchange mailbox and are available in Outlook's tasks and tasks added to Outlook sync to the app in real time. New lists created in To-do sync to the mailbox and Outlook as a new task folder.  The app supports importing tasks from Wunderlist and Todoist.

Honestly, I don't see any real changes in how Tasks work (or their limitations, such as no subtasks) or any improvement over Wunderlist (other than Outlook sync), but the iOS app looks nice and is easy to use. It's an improvement over the iOS reminder app but is not as full-featured as some third party apps designed to sync with Exchange mailboxes.  It is a work in progress though, so I'm expecting some improvements, such as subtasks.

Read more about it on the Office blog: Introducing Microsoft To-Do—now available in Preview

Sign in with your Office 365 or Outlook.com account at https://todo.microsoft.com/en-us/ or download the Microsoft To-Do app from the iTunes or Google Play app store.

Solution: Outlook.com's Company names missing in Contacts

A number of Outlook.com users have a problem with Outlook.com contacts losing the company name. They create a contact with a company name in the company field and Outlook.com removes it.  We now know the cause and the solution.

The cause: leaving the address field blank.

The solution: type something, even just a space, in the address field when creating contacts.

Remove Email Signature from Message using VBA

A user wanted to know how to use a macro to remove a signature from a message. It's simple: just look for bookmark named _MailAutoSig

If you are using a macro to create a new message or reply and need the signature removed, it will prove useful but using a macro just to remove a signature won't save a lot of time - selecting and deleting the signature is pretty simple to do, or you can create a blank signature then right click on the signature to swap signatures.

Get the code at Remove Email Signature from Message using VBA

Other Resources

Flag for Follow up the Next Business Day
Use a macro to skip weekends on holidays when flagging messages to be due tomorrow.

Focused Inbox in Outlook desktop
The Focused Inbox is coming to Outlook desktop users (both Windows and Mac). When it's available in your account, Outlook will pop up a dialog alerting you to the new feature and asking if you want to use it.

Office 2013 removed from the Office Portal
As of March 1 2017, Office 2013 is no longer available for download in the Office 365 portal or at office.microsoft.com. Direct downloads are available.

Remove Email Signature from Message using VBA
Remove a signature from a message using a VBA macro.