Alternatives to Microsoft Delve: Tools to Replace Its Features
Microsoft Delve, a tool designed to help users discover and organize information in Microsoft 365, is being retired in December 2024. With its departure, users are left wondering how to replicate its unique functionalities, such as document discovery, collaboration insights, and organizational visualization. Fortunately, Microsoft 365 offers a suite of tools that can seamlessly replace Delve's features while introducing additional enhancements.
1. Profile Cards: A Personalized View of Team Members
Microsoft 365's Profile Cards serve as an effective replacement for Delve’s user-centric features. These cards appear across multiple Microsoft applications, such as Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, providing detailed insights about your colleagues. Profile Cards display essential information, including contact details, job titles, organizational structure, and recent shared activities.
By clicking on a Profile Card, users can gain a quick understanding of a colleague’s role and how they fit into the organization. This functionality makes it easier to connect with team members and locate the documents and projects they’re working on. Its integration across Microsoft 365 ensures a consistent and unified experience, eliminating the need for a standalone application like Delve.
2. Office.com and OneDrive: Enhanced Document Discovery
For document discovery and access, Office.com and OneDrive are powerful replacements for Delve. Both platforms provide personalized content recommendations based on a user’s activity and collaboration history. Office.com offers a centralized hub where users can access their most frequently used files, documents shared with them, and projects they’ve worked on recently.
Similarly, OneDrive’s intelligent features surface relevant documents and files, ensuring users can quickly find what they need. These tools analyze collaboration trends, such as shared emails and meeting discussions, to make suggestions tailored to individual work patterns. Together, Office.com and OneDrive provide a robust alternative to Delve’s document-centric features.
3. Org Explorer: Visualizing Organizational Structures
One of Delve’s standout features was its ability to display organizational hierarchies. This functionality is now available in Org Explorer, a tool within Microsoft Viva. Org Explorer offers an interactive view of your organization’s structure, helping users understand reporting lines, team compositions, and leadership hierarchies.
With Org Explorer, users can easily identify team members, explore roles, and even visualize connections between different departments. It’s especially useful for onboarding new employees or navigating complex organizational setups. By combining visual clarity with actionable insights, Org Explorer surpasses Delve in offering a complete organizational view.
4. Microsoft Teams: Centralized Collaboration
Microsoft Teams has become the cornerstone of collaboration in the modern workplace, making it a natural alternative to Delve’s communication and sharing features. Teams integrates chat, video conferencing, and file sharing into a single platform, streamlining how teams work together.
Through Teams, users can access shared documents, participate in project-specific channels, and collaborate in real time. Its seamless integration with SharePoint, OneDrive, and other Microsoft 365 tools ensures that users can find and share files without leaving the app. With its comprehensive approach to teamwork, Microsoft Teams enhances productivity while covering many of Delve’s former use cases.
5. SharePoint: A Powerful Collaboration Platform
SharePoint has long been a staple in Microsoft 365 for managing documents, creating intranets, and facilitating team collaboration. With Delve’s retirement, SharePoint becomes an even more critical tool for organizing and discovering content. Teams can build customized sites to house project documents, share updates, and create workflows tailored to their needs.
SharePoint’s advanced search capabilities allow users to find documents quickly, while its integration with Microsoft 365 apps ensures a smooth experience across platforms. By combining collaboration with document management, SharePoint fills the gap left by Delve and adds significant value to team workflows.
Embracing the Future of Microsoft 365
The retirement of Microsoft Delve marks a shift in how users access and discover information within Microsoft 365. While Delve offered unique features, its replacements—Profile Cards, Office.com, OneDrive, Org Explorer, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint—provide a more integrated and feature-rich experience. These tools ensure that users can maintain productivity, enhance collaboration, and navigate organizational structures effectively, even in Delve’s absence.