Goodbye to Delve
Discover Delves Departure: Future Awaits in Microsoft 365 Enhancements! #DelveRetirement #Microsoft365Update #ProfileCards
Key insights
The Microsoft Delve experience, beloved by some for its ability to organize and connect content through color-coding, will be retired in December 2024. Users familiar with Delve's color association for organizational purposes will have to adapt to new methods available across the Microsoft 365 suite.
- Delve's various features, such as document discovery and profile viewing, are now absorbed into existing Microsoft 365 experiences like Office.com, SharePoint, and new Profile Cards.
- A new profile editing experience is on the horizon for the second half of 2024, which will replace Delve's profile editing capabilities, while other options remain available in SharePoint.
- The lesser-used Delve Boards will not see a direct replacement, highlighting Microsoft's strategy of retiring less popular features to streamline their service offerings.
- Existing alternatives to Delve's Boards, such as Outlook Boards, have also been retired due to low usage, indicating a trend of consolidating productivity tools within Microsoft 365.
- Despite some user confusion over document visibility and access, the retirement of Delve and its integration into other applications is seen as a simplification of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
Microsoft Delve's Departure
Ellen van Aken expresses her fondness for using color as a way to organize and connect related items from the same suite or organization. She recalls her previous curiosity regarding three Microsoft apps with dark red icons, speculating on their interconnectedness.
In August 2022, she questioned whether these apps were related, particularly enthralled with the future of Delve, as changes to Stream were already underway. And as it turns out, her speculations were correct.
On December 14, 2023, Microsoft announced that Delve will be retired in December 2024. The functionality that Delve provided is already incorporated into other applications within Microsoft 365, rendering it obsolete.
The announcement in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center clarified that many of Delve's features have improved counterparts in the Microsoft 365 experience. Users are directed to utilize Office.com, Office apps, and Profile Cards for document discovery and it introduces Org Explorer for organizational views.
Delve's profile viewing options are readily available via Profile Cards across Microsoft 365. Meanwhile, editing profile features are being revamped, with a new experience expected in the latter half of 2024, though SharePoint offers an interim solution.
Van Aken investigated possible replacements for Delve’s Boards feature, only to find that Outlook Boards, a potential substitute, were also retired due to low usage. She isn't particularly troubled by the retirement of Delve as its features already exist elsewhere and its visibility was minimal for certain users.
She notes that reducing the number of apps within the Microsoft 365 suite lessens confusion and aligns with the suite's streamlined approach. The intricacies of file visibility often perplexed users, so simplification may be a welcome change.
Van Aken concludes with a light-hearted sentiment regarding the fate of Microsoft Access, playfully awaiting its future announcements. She reflects on her past thoughts about the implication of the color red in app icons, humorously pondering if it signals potential retirement or 'danger' for those applications.
Keywords
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