Catch Up is Microsoft’s new way to present the latest changes, comments, mentions and tasks in a collaborated document, sheet or slide deck.
When a document is being managed by many people, there can be a lot happening. Edits to the doc, sheet or slides, comments and @mentions including tasks that can become hard to understand and see what applies to you. Catch Up is Microsoft’s way to help see through that clutter.
Look for a ‘Catch Up’ button at top-right next to the Comments, Editing and other buttons in Word, Excel and PowerPoint (see below for details).
Catch Up should open automatically when the document is opened or click on the button to see what’s happened since you last checked.
Catch up sections
Catch Up has two sections:
Activities for you
Lists anything directed at or for you. Replies to a comment you made, completion of a task, @mentions of you or tasks allocated to you.
A blue dot marks what Microsoft calls a ‘notable update’ i.e. an item you haven’t seen before.
Items stay visible for 28 days, even after the file is refreshed/reopened.
Click the X at left of any item to remove it from the list.
Changes in …
A summary of who has recently made changes to the file or previous edits via Version History (Word / PowerPoint) or Show Changes (Excel)
Here’s Microsoft’s examples of Catch Up in action.
Who gets it?
Catch up is only available for documents saved on OneDrive or SharePoint.
According to Microsoft there’s a gradual rollout of Catch Up, first to Word and PowerPoint for the web. So far, we’ve only seen it in PowerPoint.
After that, Excel on the web will be next to get Catch Up.
Windows desktop apps (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) are promised Catch Up. No mention of Office for Mac apps.
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