Reactions in Microsoft Outlook

truemagic · 15 Mar 2024, 11:51 AM

So now the "traditional" email gets a twist of modern messaging vibes

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/...1-fbc89d84c393

hadaso · 15 Mar 2024, 02:51 PM

So the next time you send an email message to a list expect a zillion replies from everyone "reacting" when they have nothing to add.

TenFour · 15 Mar 2024, 08:33 PM

Not a fan! OTOH, Gmail has supposedly had these since late 2023, but I don't ever recall seeing one. Maybe it's because I have Conversation View and Smart Features turned off?

hadaso · 15 Mar 2024, 09:18 PM

I wouldn't mind if this was part of a standardization process that would add some new standard message headers to email. Getting a "thanks" reaction instead of that email with a single word (with or without a smiley face) can be an improvement, as it would be easier to filter these (so they don't generate notifications). I would be happy if something like DeltaChat became a standard part of the email protocol and became mainstream, so I can have this kind of communications filed in the same place I store my email.
However what they are doing now is adding nonstandard features in a public network were people interact with other people that don't use them, much like they used to do 20-30 years ago to the web with the early versions of IE. These features that would work for people inside Microsoft's subnetwork of the public email network have the potential of making life harder for all of us outside their private subnetwork. The first problem arises when users of the MS subnetwork would happily react to everything believing it works the same for everyone, but each such reaction would generate an useless email message sent to everyone outside that subnetworks, so while avoiding "email storms" for MS customers they would generate tons of spam for the rest of us. The few of us (that is the rest of the world) that can use filtering rules would be able to filter these out, but this may mean losing some replies, because people inside the MS subnetwork may become used to using reactions like 👍 and 👎 instead of sending an actual reply, and now you would have to not filter out all of the useless reactions for the few useful ones you can't afford to miss. And then there's the admin options in MS systems that allow them to restrict sending reactions to specific destinations. So when people get used to using reactions instead of replies inside their organization, sometimes people outside would be left out and would not receive the intended reply' with no indication to the sender.
I forward all the email I receive at my employer to my Fastmail account, and only read mail there (I only open exchange when there's a specific message I really want to reply from there, or to respond to calendar invitations within the organization, which happen quite rarely). Now I don't know if "reactions" will also be forwarded like regular email. If they are not, and people inside the organization start using "reactions" as a way to reply to yes/no questions, it would completely break the way I handle my work email for more than 20 years (in 2003 when I got an email account from my employer I asked that all the email would be forwarded to an address I gave them at a subdomain in my own domain. Everything is forwarded since then).
I really hope they don't try to take over email the way they tried to take over the web.

TenFour · 15 Mar 2024, 09:25 PM

I see this text on the Microsoft page:

Quote:

Important: Reactions only fully work when the reactor and the sender of the email both have Exchange Online mailboxes. If the sender of the email is not on Exchange Online, then the reaction will be sent in the form of a fallback email instead.

I wonder how these Reactions behave if the email is forwarded outside of Exchange? I can see this being a huge mess in large companies, where probably 90% of the staff use iPhones and Macs and use Apple's email clients.

Here's some further information from another site:

Quote:

Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, Mail for Windows 10, older versions of Outlook for iOS or Android, and non-Microsoft email clients, as well as Exchange Server with hybrid modern authentication are not supported in this initial release. Users with these apps and services will not be able to apply or see reactions, but they will receive one email per day alerting them of reactions applied to their sent emails.

Reactions applied to emails from outside your tenant are not supported in this release. Users on a different tenant will not see reactions applied to their emails, nor will they receive an email alerting them of reactions applied to their sent emails. This is expected to be improved upon in a future release.

https://www.adaquest.com/outlook-rea...on-experience/

15 Mar 2024, 11:51 AM	#1
truemagic Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 128	Reactions in Microsoft Outlook So now the "traditional" email gets a twist of modern messaging vibes https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/...1-fbc89d84c393

15 Mar 2024, 02:51 PM	#2
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,848	So the next time you send an email message to a list expect a zillion replies from everyone "reacting" when they have nothing to add.

15 Mar 2024, 08:33 PM	#3
TenFour Master of the @ Join Date: Feb 2017 Location: USA Posts: 1,734	Not a fan! OTOH, Gmail has supposedly had these since late 2023, but I don't ever recall seeing one. Maybe it's because I have Conversation View and Smart Features turned off?

15 Mar 2024, 09:18 PM	#4
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,848	I wouldn't mind if this was part of a standardization process that would add some new standard message headers to email. Getting a "thanks" reaction instead of that email with a single word (with or without a smiley face) can be an improvement, as it would be easier to filter these (so they don't generate notifications). I would be happy if something like DeltaChat became a standard part of the email protocol and became mainstream, so I can have this kind of communications filed in the same place I store my email. However what they are doing now is adding nonstandard features in a public network were people interact with other people that don't use them, much like they used to do 20-30 years ago to the web with the early versions of IE. These features that would work for people inside Microsoft's subnetwork of the public email network have the potential of making life harder for all of us outside their private subnetwork. The first problem arises when users of the MS subnetwork would happily react to everything believing it works the same for everyone, but each such reaction would generate an useless email message sent to everyone outside that subnetworks, so while avoiding "email storms" for MS customers they would generate tons of spam for the rest of us. The few of us (that is the rest of the world) that can use filtering rules would be able to filter these out, but this may mean losing some replies, because people inside the MS subnetwork may become used to using reactions like 👍 and 👎 instead of sending an actual reply, and now you would have to not filter out all of the useless reactions for the few useful ones you can't afford to miss. And then there's the admin options in MS systems that allow them to restrict sending reactions to specific destinations. So when people get used to using reactions instead of replies inside their organization, sometimes people outside would be left out and would not receive the intended reply' with no indication to the sender. I forward all the email I receive at my employer to my Fastmail account, and only read mail there (I only open exchange when there's a specific message I really want to reply from there, or to respond to calendar invitations within the organization, which happen quite rarely). Now I don't know if "reactions" will also be forwarded like regular email. If they are not, and people inside the organization start using "reactions" as a way to reply to yes/no questions, it would completely break the way I handle my work email for more than 20 years (in 2003 when I got an email account from my employer I asked that all the email would be forwarded to an address I gave them at a subdomain in my own domain. Everything is forwarded since then). I really hope they don't try to take over email the way they tried to take over the web.