What is Office Delve?

Office Delve: have you heard of it? Are you using it? Should you use it?

Delve rolled out in 2014 for Office 365 for Business, powered by Office Graph, its internal machine-learning technology. Microsoft calls it “a new way to discover relevant information and connections from across your work life. Delve displays information that is most relevant for each person based on the work they are doing and the people with whom they are engaging.  With Delve, information finds you versus you having to find information.” (Source)

This description sounds great, but to really understand Delve, you have to use it. Access Delve from your Office 365 app launcher:

The first time you launch Delve, you’ll see several pop-up tips introducing you to a few features, and then you can explore. Information appears in the style of “content cards” sorted into different views (more on views below). You’ll see files from OneDrive for Business and/or SharePoint sites, as well as files that have been shared with you as email attachments. If your organization uses Office 365 Video, you may see those files as well. You won’t see documents stored in private folders unless they have been intentionally shared with you.

Views

Delve is divided into several views where you will find different collections of information. Home is your personalized tab where Office Graph surfaces the files that are most likely to be interesting and relevant to you, including both documents you worked on and files that are popular/active among your colleagues. My work and Shared with me (which will eventually be replaced with a single Me page) contain files you’ve created or modified, as shown in the image above. Boards will contain your Delve boards–more on that below. If you click on an individual’s name under People, you will see his or her Delve page, with (public or shared) documents they’ve worked on. Read more