I have always wondered about the logic behind the Office365 apps colour scheme. Is there one and if yes, where can I find it?
- There’s lots of blue, which all have to do with the more traditional Microsoft programmes, but also with collaboration and workflows.
- There’s bright green, which is about “Dates and Data”, such as Excel, Planner and Project.
- There’s teal, which appears to be related to “Create beautiful content”, such as SharePoint, Publisher, Sway and (surprisingly) Forms.
…and there’s dark red: Access, Delve and Stream
Those apps are special. For instance, they have limitations for F3-licensed users.
- Access is a desktop app, while F3 users only have web apps.
- Employees with a F3 license can view videos in Stream, but not create/add them.
- And the Delve app is not visible for them, although there is a workaround.
Access
Hands up anyone who does NOT have an important business process built in MS Access, which has been running for years and years and the person who knew all about it, has left, so suddenly IT has to maintain it. And of course there is no documentation. And databases are notoriously large, resource-heavy and non-collaborative.
I do not hear much about new Access applications, because Power Apps + Dataverse are taking over this role. Switching from Access to a new solution is not always easy (no documentation often means that all requirements need to be re-invented and data migrated), so I do not expect Access to be phased out quickly, but I would not be surprised if that is on the horizon.
Delve
I have wondered earlier if Delve would be with us to stay, as so many functions are now elsewhere in the suite. Functionalities from Delve are incorporated into
- Outlook (contact details, organigram)
- Calendar (Boards, where you can create more than just boards of documents)
- SharePoint (Saved for later)
- Search (MC 320462 is rolling out – When people click on people suggestions in the search box and a results page with documents they are working on and the searcher has access to, will come up – prepare for havoc! ๐)
- The Office365 home page for recommended and shared files
Stream
We know Stream technology is being incorporated in SharePoint – I wrote a number of posts about the topic recently. Although this change will bring a lot of migration work for support folks, it means that videos can now benefit from all the document management capabilities in SharePoint. Good!
It also means that F3-licensed users can freely create videos, as long as their OneDrive has sufficient storage space or they have access to a SharePoint site. Nice!
I am not sure if the tile will go away or that it will only be used to go to your video landing page on SharePoint.
So…
If my hunch is correct, there will be no more dark red apps in the Office suite, over time. Having a few tiles less would not be a bad idea. At my most recent organization, many people were confused by the (too) many Office365 tools they had at their disposal.
What do you think?