Sway is updated for Office 365 customers, adds password protection, more

Laurent Giret

Since the release of its new digital storytelling app Sway as a new member of the Office productivity apps ten months ago, Microsoft has been iterating pretty quickly as the app has received several new features recently such as video and living images support, integration with other Office apps, Power BI and more. Today, the Sway team has published a new blog post to celebrate the success of the app (“millions of Sways” have been created since the general availability of the app according to the team) and to also announce three new features that are going to be exclusive to Office 365 consumer, work, and education subscribers.

According to the team, these three new features are a result of the feedback from Office 365 users. The first addition is a password protection feature for Sways, which will provide more flexibility to Office 365 work and education customers (until now, those users could only limit sharing of Sways at the organizational level). You can see how to set a password for your Sways on the GIF below (click to view the animation):

Sway Password
Adding a password to a Sway (click to view animation).

The second addition is not actually a new feature, but the Sway team has increased the content limits in Sways to allow Office 365 subscribers to create longer, more dense documents. The team added that “our own data shows us that our Office 365 subscribers typically create longer and more robust Sways with higher amounts of videos, tweets and other embedded content.”

Lastly, Office 365 subscribers will be able to remove the informational footer at the end of a Sway and “achieve a more polished look.” To do so, just tap the “Share” icon and uncheck the “Show Sway branding in this Sway” checkbox. The following GIF demonstrates the process (click to view the animation):

Sway Footer
Removing the footer (click to view animation).

These three new features are available right now in Sway on the web while the Windows 10 app will get them in the coming months. The Sway team added that it is “excited to provide ongoing value to our Office 365 subscribers and will continue adding new, exclusive Sway features over time,” which means that Sway is slowly becoming a freemium app just like the other Office Mobile apps.

Do you understand Microsoft’s incentives to monetize its storytelling app? Let us know what you think in the comments below.