Leveling up productivity with Box and Microsoft 365
With the increasing need to support hybrid work across distributed teams, enterprises need to have connected, integrated solutions that help them get work done from anywhere, on any device, across all their apps. That’s why Box integrates with over 1,500 apps – so that our customers can stay productive while securely consolidating all their content into a single, unified platform.
Some of Box’s most popular integrations span the Microsoft 365 product portfolio, reflecting the tens of thousands of organizations who deploy our two platforms alongside one another. To deepen interoperability between them, we continue to invest heavily in enhancing these integrations for the benefit of Box and Microsoft joint customers such as Nationwide, BT, and Flex.
Box for Microsoft Office
Today, Box for Microsoft Office enables you to create and collaborate on files across Office online, desktop, and mobile apps, with all changes saved to Box. It's one of our most popular integrations, so we're always working to improve it based on customer feedback. That's why we're excited to announce an upcoming enhancement that will further streamline work when using our Box for Microsoft Office integration.
In early 2022, we will be enhancing our Box for Microsoft Office integration to enable real-time co-authoring on Office desktop and mobile apps. Users will be able to simultaneously edit and collaborate on Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files on desktop and mobile in real-time, with all changes automatically saved to the Box Content Cloud.
Many of our customers already co-author on Microsoft Office documents saved in Box with our existing Box for Office integration for the web. At the same time, we want to empower them to do their best work in whatever Office app they prefer, whether it’s on desktop, mobile, or web. This feature will be available when users access Office files from Box Drive, Box Mobile, and through the Office desktop app’s Add a Place functionality.
This is one of the most frequent feature requests we receive, and we’re excited to deliver this for our customers soon to help them work together more effectively across teams and external stakeholders.
Box for Microsoft Teams
Rebuilt from the ground up and launched in March 2020, the Box for Microsoft Teams integration embeds the core Box experience directly inside Teams so that you can access content as you communicate and collaborate with teammates. With the Box for Teams integration, you can create, share, and open Box files to edit directly from within Teams.
At the end of 2021, we plan to update Box for Microsoft Teams so that customers can default to Box as a storage option in Teams. This update will allow organizations to unify their content in Box under a consistent security, compliance, and governance policy, while eliminating user confusion and content fragmentation. This feature will also enable more granular options for IT - admins will be able to deploy to all Teams users, or to select specific users or teams. Box for Teams is one of our most used integrations, and we’re committed to continue enhancing it to fit the needs of the ever-changing workplace.
We’re currently running a preview program for each of these new enhancements on Box for Office and Box for Teams. If you’re interested in participating and sharing your feedback to help us refine future plans with Microsoft, please visit this page for more information.
Want to learn more about how you can use Box as your Content Cloud across all your apps? Tune into the BoxWorks keynote to learn more!