Progress does not stand still, and Microsoft constantly introduces exciting developments and advancements. Since Microsoft Office has proved a real boon to millions of users and revolutionized the way we organize our workflow (well, we know you don’t always speak about the thing in such glowing terms, but still), it’s no wonder this Windows component is at the forefront of Microsoft’s technological thinking. Today we have Office 365, and it is really smart due to the number of cutting-edge features it offers, the much-touted Office Intelligent Services (OIS) pack being actually the most advanced of the lot. Evidently, as you are reading this post, you are wondering, “What are Office Intelligent Services used for?” Thus, we believe now is the best time to shed some light on those innovations and find out how you can get the most out of them.

What are OIS?

In layman’s terms, Office Intelligent Services are cloud-enhanced features embedded into Office apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, to be precise – on Windows 10. OIS are designed to save you a lot of time and effort (and nerves) and make you more productive by providing handy extra functions.

If you want to be able to use Office Intelligent Services, you should:

  1. get the latest version of Office 365,
  2. open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook,
  3. go to File, click on Options,
  4. select General, go to Office intelligent services,
  5. and check Enable services.

Once enabled in any of the above programs, the setting will work across all of these apps.

You might also need to do the following in order to be able to use certain intelligent services:

  1. Open your Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook app.
  2. Go to File and select Options.
  3. Navigate to Trust Center.
  4. Click the Trust Center Settings button.
  5. Go to Privacy Options.
  6. Check both privacy options to turn them on.

How to use Office Intelligent Services in Office 365?

Here are some Office Intelligent Services you can make use of in Office 365 (this list is not exhaustive, and new features are constantly being added):

  • Word Translator

With the cloud-based Microsoft Translator feature in place, your Office app can translate words, phrases and even entire documents. As of this writing, the intelligent translation tool works only on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and there are 60 languages to translate from or to.

Here is how you can use Microsoft Translator to translate selected words and phrases in Word, PowerPoint and Excel:

  1. In your Word, PowerPoint or Excel file, select the text you would like to translate.
  2. Click on Review and select Translate.
  3. Select the target language and see the translation.
  4. Click Insert (in Excel, you’ll have insert the text manually).

Use the instructions below to translate an entire Word document (this feature is available only if you are using Office 365 and Version 1710 (or higher) of Word):

  1. Open your Word doc.
  2. Navigate to Review.
  3. Click on Translate.
  4. Select Translate document.
  5. Choose the To language.
  6. Select Translate.
  7. You will see a separate window with the translated text.
  8. In the original window, click OK.

You can translate your document to more than one language. Multilingual documents are also supported.

  • Ideas

Ideas is a powerful data-analyzing tool available on the latest version of Office 365. The thing places your data in a visual context by using the analysis types such as ranks, trends, patterns, outliers, etc. This makes your figures more understandable and helps you make data-driven decisions.

To use Ideas in Excel, do the following:

  1. Open an .xlsx, .xlsm, or xslb file (these are the only formats supporting Ideas).
  2. Make sure your data is clean and tabular. You’d better organize it in a table with a single row of unique headers at the top. There should be no blank labels or merged cells in the row.
  3. Select your data and navigate to the Home tab.
  4. Click on the Ideas button.

You will see a task pane full of visuals displaying your data.

Note: Unfortunately, if your dataset is over 16MB, you can’t run Ideas on it. You’ll have to filter and relocate the data to use the service.

No Ideas in your Office 365? Then try joining the Office Insiders Program to get the feature as soon as possible:

  1. Click on File.
  2. Select Account.
  3. Click on Office Insider.

Now that you have joined the program, chances are you’ll see Ideas quite soon.

  • PowerPoint Designer

PowerPoint Designer makes your slides attractive and compelling by working in the background to suggest excellent design ideas. Just put your content on a slide to see appealing layouts and stylish graphics.

Here is how you can utilize PowerPoint Designer:

  1. Navigate to the Design tab in your PowerPoint presentation.
  2. Click on the Design Ideas option.
  3. You will see a list of suggestions in the Design Ideas pane. Work your way through all the options and select what you like. Your slide will change accordingly. If you don’t like the new design, press the Ctrl+Z shortcut to undo it.

By and large, Office Intelligent Services are well-designed solutions that can improve your work significantly. If you want to go a step further and take your productivity to a whole new level, consider trying Auslogics BoostSpeed. This advanced yet intuitive tool will:

  • boost your system’s overall performance,
  • remove junk from your PC,
  • enhance your security,
  • prevent crashes, lags and other issues (click the above link to check out all the nifty functions the program offers).

How to disable Microsoft Office 365 Intelligent Services?

For security reasons, you might be looking how to turn off Intelligent Services. In a case like this, we advise you to read Microsoft’s privacy statement (which is an informative and comprehensive document) and make a well-informed decision,

If you are convinced that there is no room for OIS in your system, feel free to disable the services in question:

  1. Open your Office app (Word, Excel, Outlook, or PowerPoint).
  2. Click on the File tab.
  3. Go to Options -> General.
  4. Scroll down to see OIS.
  5. Uncheck the Enable services box.

Well, let’s call it a day. If you have any questions regarding the topic, please contact us via the comments section below. We’ll be more than happy to help you!