Intelligent Technology Depends on Machine Learning Access to User Data

Some years ago, I wrote about how Outlook uses machine learning to predict words to insert in messages. This was an early example of machine learning in Outlook. Text prediction is common practice today and we almost expect applications to include machine learning to help us compose notes, documents, and responses. Given the introduction of ChatGPT and Bing’s AI Bot, some worry about the prospect of increasing amounts of machine-generated text and its effect on human creativeness. It’s definitely a story to follow.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has steadily increased the use of “intelligent technology” in Outlook. Currently, the range of features covers features like birthday detection to text predictions to suggested replies, controlled through OWA settings (Figure 1). Regretfully, the Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration cmdlet doesn’t currently support updating these settings for a mailbox.

The combination of Microsoft Research and product engineering groups has driven the introduction of intelligent technology in OWA. For example, Outlook’s suggested replies feature is underpinned by the Azure Machine Learning Service.

Outlook Desktop Lags in Intelligence

Outlook desktop clients receive the intelligent technology features after OWA. This lag has always existed, but at least we can respond to email with an emoji. Oddly, there’s been a few recent reports of Outlook for Windows failing to display the “show text predictions while typing” setting in its options (here’s an example). I don’t see the setting on one PC and do on another, both of which run the same build of Outlook click to run. I even updated the system registry at HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\MailSettings to set the InlineTextPrediction DWORD value to 1 to enable text predictions with no effect.

Microsoft Processing of User Data

One thing that people get worried about is the notion that Microsoft “reads” their email to create suggested replies and to build models for text predictions. It’s true that Microsoft processes email to create the suggestions and predictions used by Outlook, but the important thing is that the data used by the learning models constructed to help machine learning understand how individual users work with text remain in user mailboxes. Microsoft doesn’t gather information from the 380-odd million active Office 365 users to improve its detection algorithms. The general foundation for the models come from public data (and I imagine, messages circulating within Microsoft), but the tweaks to make those models personal remain private to the user.

In its user documentation for suggested replies, Microsoft says that “Suggested replies are generated by a computer algorithm and use natural language processing and machine learning technologies to provide response options.” It also says that “Outlook uses a machine learning model to continually improve the accuracy of the suggestions. This model runs on the same servers as your mailbox within your organization. No message content is transmitted or stored outside of your organization.”

These statements don’t mean that the machine learning code runs on 300K Exchange Online mailbox servers. Instead, Microsoft uses a concept called Privacy Preserving Machine Learning (PPML) to transfer data to specialized AI computers in the Microsoft cloud. After processing, Microsoft erases the source information from the AI computers and background agents update mailboxes with user-specific results. It is this information that Outlook consumes locally when dealing with messages.

Email is worldwide, but the structures and syntax used by different languages means that Microsoft’s machine learning processes is limited to certain languages. For instance, at the time of writing, suggested replies are available in only 22 languages.

I’ve heard (but can cite no public evidence) that AI processing occurs on a tenant basis to allow some consolidation of generic results at the tenant level. For instance, if many users in a tenant use “OK” as a standard response, it’s likely that machine learning will consider “OK” as a prime candidate to be a suggested response for everyone in that tenant. The consolidated generic data remains in the tenant.

Viva Insights Processes User Email Too

In addition to the way Microsoft processes user email to understand text patterns, Viva Insights looks through email to detect commitments made by users. Its MyAnalytics predecessor started to scan emails for commitments in 2018. When users open the Viva Insights add-in or use the Viva Insights app in Teams, they see recommendations and insights derived from the contents of the calendar and inbox folders from their mailbox.

Among the information Viva Insights highlights are messages that might contain commitments that the user needs to follow up. Viva Insights displays details of the messages it has found and prompts the users to either note the potential task as complete or add it as a personal To Do task (Figure 2).

Viva Insights also finds messages where the user asks recipients to do something and prompts them to either follow up or mark the task as done.

There’s lots of deep research into finding commitments in email and highlighting those commitments to users. But again, the important thing is that the data used by Viva Insights remains in user mailboxes and is under the control of users.

Worrying About the Data Used by Machine Learning in Outlook

Those with responsibility for compliance and privacy in an organization are usually the people most worried about the processing of user data. With the growth of machine learning and AI-powered “experiences” and the resultant need for access to user data to learn from, this is a good concern to have. In the case of Microsoft 365, many “connected experiences” exist where people consume a cloud service without realizing where data comes from or is consumed.

Personally, I’m not concerned about how machine learning processes my email as the outcome is useful (when it works), but I realize that others have different feelings. It’s a topic for every organization to work through and figure out how happy they are to have Microsoft process their data to create new features.

To finish off, Figure 3 shows how Bing chat answered my question about how Outlook uses machine learning…

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Users Can Decide What Pronoun to Display in Profile Card

Updated March 30, 2023

Announced in message center notification MC515531 (last updated 21 February 2023), the ability to enable pronouns in Microsoft 365 profile cards is available in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Once enabled, users can set their preferred Microsoft 365 pronouns using the preview version of Teams. The pronoun feature is covered by Microsoft 365 roadmap item 86352 (Teams) and 115511 (OWA).

I have been able to update pronouns in Teams, OWA, and the latest build of the Monarch (“One Outlook”) client.

Employee Engagement

Microsoft’s documentation for the pronoun feature says that “the simple act of using the right pronouns for one another can help build trust and improve communication among colleagues.” Microsoft goes on to highlight that “Whether or not to share or publicly display pronouns is always up to an individual. Pronouns should never be assigned to one person by another person. It should be up to the person using them to decide when, where, and which pronouns are used – including whether to use this feature.”

In other words, organizations should do some thinking and employee engagement before they implement pronouns for profile cards.

Implementing Pronouns on the Microsoft 365 Profile Card

The first step is to enable pronouns for the organization. Go to Org settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center and select the Security & privacy tab. Pronouns is one of the listed options (Figure 1).

Microsoft says that it can take up to 7 hours before users can change their pronouns. In practice, expect the change to take a day before it is effective. If you disable pronouns, it will take the same length of time before pronouns disappear from view for all users. Microsoft 365 removes pronoun data if an organization disables the feature. Like most deletions in Microsoft 365, deletion is not immediate and if you reenable pronouns, previously set values will reappear.

After the software change is effective, users will see the option to update pronouns on their profile card. For instance, I clicked on my photo for a message posted to a Teams channel to reveal my profile card and see the option to add pronouns (Figure 2).

Remember Microsoft’s point that pronouns are a personal decision for users? To enable freedom of choice, you can add whatever text you like for a pronoun. The profile card suggests the commonly-used values such as “She/Her,” but you can ignore these values and use whatever text you prefer (up to 30 characters).

The important thing to remember is that pronouns are visible to all members of the organization. There’s no way to restrict pronoun display to a certain segment, such as members of a group. Guest members and external members of shared channels can’t see pronoun information on profile cards.

Building the Profile Card

Microsoft 365 stores user pronouns in a hidden folder in user Exchange Online mailboxes. Apps that support the profile card retrieve the information from the mailbox along with other properties (including custom attributes) to display the profile card (Figure 4).

A Change to Plan

Microsoft’s FAQ for pronouns contains some other useful information to consult before implementation. Displaying pronouns in the profile card is obviously something that an organization should think through before implementation. For example, some organizations also add pronouns to account display names, meaning that the information shows up in address books and other places where people see display names, like email headers, listings of documents in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, and so on. Don’t rush to deploy just because someone (maybe a vocal proponent) thinks that pronouns are a good idea. Pause, consider, and then decide.

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Time to Consider How to Handle Outlook Add-Ins for New Clients

A recent Practical365.com article about user submissions of suspicious email caused me to think. Not about the proposal because it’s obvious that allowing people to report suspicious messages that Exchange Online delivers to their inboxes is a good idea.

After all, if someone receives an email that looks like malware, smells like phishing, and has a faint hint of spam, it’s probably not a good thing. And if it gets to a mailbox, it’s a failure of Exchange Online Protection (EOP) or whatever email cleansing service the message passed through en route. Reporting this kind of message to their administrator or Microsoft for further analysis is right and proper. Everyone benefits when Microsoft receives copies of messages that get past the EOP tests.

Customizable Notification Messages

The article explains how Exchange Online now allows organizations to customize the messages displayed when people report bad email. It’s a nice feature that allows organizations to reassure people that something happens when they take the time to report a problem. No one likes their efforts to disappear into a black hole. Figure 1 is an example of a customized message sent to people in my tenant when an administrator reviews a reported message. The format of the message contains corporate branding to reassure the recipient about its source.

The End of COM Add-ins

But the goodness of being able to create customized notification messages for reporting bad email is not what caused me to think. My attention was drawn to the assertion that the Report Message/Report Phish add-ins will stop working at some point in the future. These add-ins allow users to report messages as junk mail or phishing and have been around for a while. Their long-term replacement is a built-in Report message button that can report messages as either phishing or junk. In other words, a consolidation of add-ins.

At this point, you might wonder why I focus on such an arcane subject. Does it matter if Microsoft decides to replace some Outlook add-ins? Of course, it doesn’t, except when it’s a pointer to a change that might affect customer organizations and ISVs. The older Outlook (for Windows) add-in model is COM-based. Many such examples of these add-ins exist, whether built by ISVs or in-house.

Monarch and OWA Don’t Use COM

But Microsoft is heading to a common Outlook base, aka “One Outlook” or Project Monarch, with the aim of delivering a unified client on as many platforms as possible. The Monarch client is based on OWA and cannot use COM add-ins. Instead, the new Outlook add-in model uses JavaScript or HTML. Monarch is currently in preview with Office Insiders and, like OWA, receives frequent updates. We don’t know when Monarch will transition to become the next version of Outlook for Windows. Given the current state of play, this probably won’t happen in 2023. But 2024?

This brings me to the point of this note: Microsoft is updating its Outlook add-ins to move away from COM. Is the same happening for the add-ins created by ISVs or in-house development? With its knowledge of where the Outlook puck is going, Microsoft has first-mover advantage here, but the fact that it’s making the change should signal a warning to tenant administrators and architects that it’s time to understand what COM-based add-ins are in use and the plans to evolve them to work with the new Outlook, or even with today’s OWA client.

ISVs know what’s happening and will have plans to evolve their products. I wonder if the same attention is paid for in-house code. Given the longevity of the current Outlook for Windows architecture, it’s possible that some add-ins are in situ that no one wearing an administrator hat knows much about. It would be a shame if an obscure but necessary add-in surfaced to disrupt future deployment plans, so do yourself a favor and check now.

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Driving Usage for the Bookings with Me App

The January 12 announcement that bookable time is coming to Outlook (OWA) is no more than a Microsoft attempt to drive usage of the Bookings with Me app. There’s nothing wrong with that tactic, even if it might make some people think that the announcement brings news of a brand new feature.

Microsoft also refers to bookable time as “Bookings in Outlook” and asserts that the apps helps to reduce “the back and forth in scheduling while helping you [to] maintain control of your calendar.” Bookable time in Outlook is available to users with the following licenses:

• Office 365: A3, A5, E1, E3, E5, F1, F3 
• Microsoft 365: A3, A5, E1, E3, E5, F1, F3, Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium 

The Magic of Controlled Scheduling

This magic happens through uses creating a personal bookings page where they publish slots where they are available to meet people who care to make a booking through the page. The control Microsoft mentions comes about by the user establishing a schedule of available time slots when the user will accept 1:1 meetings (Figure 1).

Microsoft’s documentation for Bookings with Me explains the various settings.

It’s important to emphasize that bookings are regular Outlook meetings that show up in a user calendar alongside other events. There’s absolutely nothing different between a meeting scheduled in the normal way and one created using Bookings with Me. The intelligence in the Bookings with Me app is entirely in the user interface to define available slots and the processing that publishes those slots and allows people to make bookings. Users can edit the settings of their booking pages by going to the Booking app.

Not everyone will want to or be interested in Bookings with Me. Within a company, it’s a facility that people like HR consultants might use to allow employees to easily set up meetings to seek advice, Externally, people need an Azure AD account (school or work account) to book an appointment using Bookings with Me. The calendar owner remains in full control at all time and can reschedule or cancel appointments made with them at any time. Those who request meetings can also cancel or reschedule appointments (with the calendar owner’s assent).

Publishing and Using a Booking Page

When the schedule is ready, the user can publish (share) their availability for meetings. If the user hasn’t published a booking schedule before, the app generates a URL that the user can share with people who might want an appointment (Figure 2). For instance, they could include the URL in their email signature or publish it in their Teams status.

Clicking the link displays the user’s personalized booking page and exposes the available time slots based on the schedule established by the user (Figure 3).

Bookings and Bookings with Me

Some are confused between Bookings with Me and Microsoft Bookings. The differences are straightforward:

• Bookings with me is for personal use and deals with 1:1 meetings only. It is an Outlook feature that can schedule Teams online meetings. All events are in the user’s calendar.
• Microsoft Bookings is a separate application with its own (scheduling) mailboxes intended for use by a group or other entity.

Whether the advent of bookable time in OWA will convince more people to create Bookings with Me pages to allow others to schedule meetings with them remains to be seen. If you need a feature like this, it’s nice to have Bookings with Me. If not, it’s very safe to ignore bookable time.

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