OneDrive brings new features to the details pane on the web for easier collaboration

Microsoft today announced some improvements coming to the file details panel and activity feed on OneDrive for the web. The changes make it easier to view information about the recent actions on files and folders in a comprehensive side panel without having to open the file. The added information now shows a list of users that the file is shared with, actions that have been performed on them, and the ability to navigate to the files or comments easily.

The company says that these changes improve the “sharing and collaboration experience on OneDrive for home use”. The file details pane improvements include the ability to view all activities or actions that have taken place with the document such as renaming, deleting, restoring, sharing, or more. The actions are also ordered by time, helping users quickly check when a certain action was taken, or a comment was made on documents like PDFs. The details pane also provides a bell icon that lets users turn email notifications on or off for the file.

The activity feed, the panel that is accessed from the My Files section by clicking on the ‘(i)’ icon, is also receiving similar enhancements. It now lets users view a snapshot of actions on all files and folders, which are ordered by time. The sections include yesterday, last week, and more. The company says that it has batched the activities to “avoid showing too much in a short time span”. Users can also navigate to the files or folders by clicking on the file links in the activity feed. Clicking on an activity for a change in Office files will deep-link users to the part of the document where the edit/activity happened.

Overall, though minor, the additions to the details and activity panes improve the usability of the features. Quickly accessing edits and comments saves users time and enables quick responses. The enhancements to the panes are now rolling out to all users on the web.