I couple of months ago I tweeted that I thought our university’s student Yammer was more user-friendly than Outlook Groups. In true, internet-style someone pointed out that they both fulfill different collaboration needs.

And it's more user-friendly than Outlook groups https://t.co/DF3PEsPjrp

— Nina (@ninabrighton) August 4, 2016

After discovering the Outlook Groups app (download on Itunes, Android and Windows), I’m growing to appreciate Outlook Groups.

Access
You might be wondering how to access Outlook Groups. I cannot find a direct link (hence, my user-friendly comment). You can find the groups in the bottom left-hand column of Outlook, under your inbox and other folders. There are two options when you get there; Discover (browse the groups made by other students) or Create (make your own).

Discover
During my early days at University of Brighton I looked here for a social group. If there is one, I’ve yet to find it. I also found that many of the generically titled groups were private.

Create
I’ve created three groups during my time at university. I made a group for my degree course, but subsequently deleted it. Firstly, I found that nobody really seemed to read their emails prior to induction week. Secondly, there was no option to invite people to your group. If you put their name in the member section they are automatically added (I can understand why some people have issues with this!) Thirdly, I filled the group calendar with events I thought my classmates would find interesting – this just caused confusion. My other two groups are empty.

Functions
When you make a group or join a group, the things you can do with it are kinda neat. In no particularly order:

• Unique email address (which you can allow outsiders to email) – it takes the format of yourgroupname@unibrightonac.onmicrosoft.com
• Sharepoint site – at https://unibrightonac.sharepoint.com/sites/yourgroupname
• If you use OneNote, you get a notebook (I haven’t used this feature though I reckon it’s probably a notebook that all members can edit and access anywhere)
• Connectors
• You can automatically subscribe new members to the email list – so whenever someone comments, everyone sees it in the email inbox
• You can also unsubscribe from the email list – you will still be a group member, but you’ll only see conversations on the group page

App
As always, some screenshots of the app (showing home, conversation and Sharepoint files)

I’ll just put it out there that I love Sharepoint. I have friends and colleagues who just don’t see the sharepoint of it. Although I agree with all their criticisms of it, it just seems to cooperate nicely with me. (This may be due to me having a Windows Phone. I could spend hours talking about the weird things my Windows Phone does but all apps on it just seem to work harmoniously with eachother and my OCD-brain likes the uniformity and collaboration parts.)

The student Sharepoint takes a while to navigate, so I’ll blog about it in various parts to avoid overwhelming.

I’ll start off by talking about the Newsfeed. Students (with @uni.brighton.ac.uk email addresses) can view the newsfeed here https://unibrightonac-my.sharepoint.com/default.aspx

If you’ve looked at this page recently you’ll see me. In all the time I’ve used the newsfeed I have never seen activity from anyone else. It only seems to show activity from the past couple of weeks. I like it because it has the potential to reach all students (something that doesn’t seem to happen anywhere else – unless a general forum could be created in StudentCentral).

I view the newsfeed in the Sharepoint Newsfeed app. I recommend it for anyone interested in using the newsfeed. You can get it on Itunes and in the Windows Store (I don’t know if there’s an android app).

It’s easy to set up once installed and, I just think, it’s smooth.

You can also follow classmates and friends on the MyPeople page. I just like saying My people – it makes me feel like Marky Mark.

I also like that if you click on someone’s name it takes you to their Delve (but Delve’s a post for another day).