Connected Services in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

Microsoft releases new features for Office 365 users all the time. Some of these features, such as the Morph transition effect were not part of PowerPoint 2016 and were also not included in updates for PowerPoint 2016 users, but when they released the next, perpetual version in the form of PowerPoint 2019, the Morph feature was included within the feature-set.

Yet, there are some features that will not be made available even to any perpetual version including PowerPoint 2019, and these are features that use some sort of connection with Microsoft Office's intelligent services technology. These features are called Connected experiences and are responsible for experiences that may analyze your content and download online content to make your slides appear richer—and are only available to Office 365 subscribers. Some of these connected experiences include the PowerPoint Designer feature.

Did you know that there may be scenarios where you may still not have access to these connected experiences, even if you are using an Office 365 subscription version of PowerPoint?

To explore further, please follow these steps in PowerPoint 365 for Windows:

1. Click the File menu to access Backstage view. Then, click the Account option to bring up the screen you see in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Account tab in Backstage view
2. Now, click the Manage Settings button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, above. This will bring up the Privacy Settings dialog box, which you can see in Figure 2, below.
3. 
   Figure 2: Privacy Settings
3. Scroll down this Privacy Settings dialog box so that you can see the Connected experiences section, as shown in Figure 2, above. Options marked in Figure 2 are explained below:

A. Experiences that analyze your content

4. Once you select the checkbox that says Let Office analyze your content to provide you with improvements, you will get access to some amazing features such as Cloud fonts, Ink Effects, icons, insertion of forms and quizzes, 3d models, online pictures and videos, Quickstarter, Tell Me, and extra templates.

B. Experiences that download online content

5. Once you select the checkbox that says Let Office download online content, you will get access to some amazing features such again include Cloud fonts, Ink Effects, icons, insertion of forms and quizzes, 3d models, online pictures and videos, Quickstarter, Tell Me, and extra templates.

C. All connected experiences

6. Rather than turn the options in the preceding A and B sections on and off individually, you can turn them all on by selecting the checkbox that says Enable connected experiences. Other than turning all mentioned experiences on or off, this option also enables or disables document co-authoring and online file storage—so be sure of the results if turning this checkbox off.
7. More information about connected experiences can be found on the Microsoft site.