Enhance Your MS Outlook with Viva Insights
What will this topic cover?
This topic is part of the wider Organisation & Management pathway. The topic will introduce you Viva Insights.
Viva Insights is a powerful tool within Outlook designed to help you enhance productivity, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and improve overall well-being. By providing personalised insights and actionable recommendations.
Schedule uninterrupted time blocks to concentrate on important tasks.
Stay on top of deadlines, prepare for meetings and prioritise tasks effectively.
Receive reminders to take breaks, plan time away, and manage your workload.
How to use this topic page
This topic page is split up into different sections. Each section has a step and an activity to complete. These include scenarios and links off to instructions to try elements for yourself. Each learning unit also has a reflective section to think about how this will be used within your own practice.
Step 1: Accessing Viva Insights in MS Outlook
Why should I use Viva Insights?
Viva Insights should be used to enhance productivity and well-being in the workplace. It is particularly beneficial when you need to optimise your focus time, prepare effectively for meetings, and manage tasks efficiently.
By leveraging data-driven insights, Viva Insights helps you identify patterns and habits that may be impacting your productivity and well-being. It provides actionable recommendations to help you stay on top of your workload, reduce stress, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Whether you’re looking to improve your daily workflow, ensure productive meetings, or simply take better care of your mental health, Viva Insights offers the tools and insights needed to achieve these goals.
Activity 1: Try it yourself
Visit the link below, read the instructions to learn how to access Viva Insights within MS Outlook.
Step 2: Setting Focus Time
Why should I set focus time?
Setting focus time is incredibly helpful because it allows you to dedicate uninterrupted periods to work on important tasks without distractions. This practice enhances productivity by enabling deep work, where you can fully immerse yourself in complex or creative tasks. By scheduling focus time, you can manage your workload more effectively, reduce the stress of multitasking, and improve the quality of your output. Additionally, it helps in maintaining a better work-life balance by ensuring that you have designated times for focused work, which can lead to more efficient use of your overall time and a clearer separation between work and personal life.
Activity 2: Try it yourself
Visit the link below and open the ‘Book time to Focus’ tab of the accordion to learn how to get Viva Insights to regularly block out focus time within your calendar.
Step 3: Meeting Preparation
Why should I use Viva Insights to help prepare for meetings?
Viva Insights provides you with relevant information and context, ensuring you are well-prepared and can contribute effectively. Viva Insights offers insights into attendee status, related documents, and key topics, allowing you to review important details beforehand. This preparation helps streamline meetings, making them more productive and focused. Additionally, being well-prepared can boost your confidence and enable you to engage more meaningfully in discussions, ultimately leading to better decision-making and outcomes.
Activity 3: Try it for yourself
Visit the link below and open the ‘Prepare for your meetings’ tab of the accordion to learn how to get Viva Insights to regularly block out focus time within your calendar.
Step 4: Catch Up on Documents
How can Viva Insights help me to catch up on documents?
Viva Insights helps you catch up on documents by providing easy access to relevant files and information directly within Outlook. It identifies and surfaces documents that are related to your upcoming meetings, tasks, and recent collaborations, ensuring you have all the necessary materials at your fingertips. This feature saves you time and effort by eliminating the need to search through emails or folders, allowing you to quickly review and prepare for your work.
By keeping you organised and informed, Viva Insights ensures you stay on top of your responsibilities and can contribute effectively to your projects and meetings.
Activity 4: Try it yourself
Visit the link below and open the ‘Catch up on documents’ tab of the accordion to learn how to get Viva Insights to regularly block out focus time within your calendar.
Step 5: Preparing for Time Away
Why should I use Viva Insights to Prepare for Time Away?
Viva Insights helps you prepare for time off by providing tools and reminders to ensure a smooth transition. It allows you to plan and schedule your time away, notifying you of any upcoming tasks or meetings that need to be addressed before your break. Viva Insights also helps you delegate responsibilities and set up automatic replies, ensuring that your absence is managed effectively. By organising your workload and communicating your availability, Viva Insights ensures you can enjoy your time off without worrying about unfinished tasks or missed communications.
Activity 5: Scenario
Read through this scenario and think about the question below. Click on the answer button to find out an example solution.
Gino had a holiday booked, but his team had recently started a new project and the workload in recent weeks had been heavier than expected. He left several tasks unfinished, didn’t inform most of his team about his absence, and forgot to set up an out-of-office reply. As a result, his colleagues were left scrambling to cover his responsibilities, important deadlines were missed, and Gino returned to a mountain of emails and urgent tasks, making his return to work stressful and overwhelming.
What could Gino have done differently?
If Gino had used Viva Insights, he could have been better prepared for his holiday. Viva Insights would have reminded him to complete any pending tasks and provided a checklist to ensure nothing was left unfinished. It would have also suggested setting up an out-of-office reply and delegating responsibilities to his team members. By organising his workload and communicating his absence effectively, Gino could have enjoyed a stress-free holiday and returned to work with a clear mind and manageable tasks.
Visit the link below and open the ‘Plan your time away’ tab of the accordion to learn how to get Viva Insights to regularly block out focus time within your calendar.
Step 6: Reflection
What have I learnt from this learning topic?
This step is designed to help you think about what you have learned and how this applies to your own practice and context. Learning Activity 5 will ask you some questions to help you with this reflection.
Activity 6: Reflect
Use the following questions to help you think about your own practice.
- How do you currently prepare for meetings?
- How do you currently prepare for time away?
- Do you think you can improve your practice and how?
- Are there any specific features in Viva Insights that you think could be particularly useful for your work or team?
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