At the Microsoft Build 2018 event, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 Timeline will soon arrive on Android and iOS, and also unveiled the Microsoft Layout app to help users design creative spaces in mixed reality. Another major announcement was the integration of Microsoft Pay into Outlook, a move that will allow users to pay their bills without leaving the email client and opening another app/webpage to make the payment.
Microsoft has announced that payments for bills can now be made straight from Outlook, thanks to the integration with the company’s own mobile payments and digital wallet service.
“We will soon be introducing payments in Outlook to help users to pay bills or invoices, right in email, without needing to switch to another app or service. Powered by Microsoft Pay, payments in Outlook is a fast and secure way to pay from within email”, said Microsoft in an official blog post.
Businesses can now send an invoice or bill to users by embedding a payment action from within Outlook. Once users open the mail, a separate panel titled ‘Pay Your Invoice’ will open in Outlook, where users can confirm the payment without being redirected to another page to do the transaction. As a start, bill payment on Outlook via Microsoft Pay will be supported by:
- Payment Processors: Stripe and Braintree
- Billing Services: Zuora
- Invoicing Servies: FreshBooks, Intuit, Invoice2Go, Sage, Wave, and Xero
The payments window in Outlook will be an extension of Microsoft’s Adaptive Cards, a tool which provides a faster way to assign tasks and get them done in any of Microsoft’s services aimed at professionals. The payments feature in Outlook will be rolled out in a phased manner and will soon be available to a limited number of users in the upcoming weeks, while a wider rollout will commence in the next few months.
