If you own an Android phone and have got the Outlook app installed on it to check your mails on the go, I am sure you would have been irritated at times while entering the long digit pin very often to access the Outlook app.
You will be excited to know that Microsoft has finally updated the biometric authentication to allow face unlock in the Outlook Android app with the latest Microsoft Intune monthly update 2009 , which has been released recently in September 2020.
If you have not yet got this feature on your mobile, you will need to understand how the app protection policies are implemented by your organization on your mobile apps reading the company data. Let's understand how your company implements these protection policies on Outlook app running on your phones.
How your company enables the protection of its data in your mobile apps?
Every organization invests heavily in protecting the company data and the protection is enforced on the data in the Microsoft apps (e.g Outlook) using the App Protection Policies (APP). The App protection policies are generally implemented in one of the following ways:
1. Companies usually enrol in the Microsoft MDM (Mobile device management) solution like Intune or third party MDM solutions to manage the devices owned by them, for example the laptops provided by companies to their employees. This enables them to have some control on the applications installed on the company owned devices.
2. The protection in the employees' personal devices (e.g personal mobile phones) is enforced by implementing the Intune app protection policies for Outlook app at the Office 365 level.
So if you access the outlook app on your personal mobile and your company has already moved to office 365, it is highly probable that the second method of policies have been applied by your organization. If you want to read further on this, check out the App Policies Protection document by Microsoft.
When will you be able to use Face Unlock for Outlook Android?
As the Microsoft Intune monthly update containing Face Unlock update has been rolled out recently in Sep 2020, it might take some time for you to get this feature on your mobile provided the below conditions are fulfilled.
1. Your phone should have the Android 10 or higher to use the face unlock feature on the Android App as this is the pre-requisite for using it.
2. Your organization must get the monthly Microsoft Intune updates and takes this feature into consideration to roll out the latest biometric policy for its employees to use the face unlock method as well.
3. Also, you need to ensure that you have downloaded the latest update of the Microsoft Outlook application from the Play store on your mobile.
You can check all the details of the Microsoft Intune including the updates release cycle and the features in this Microsoft document
How to use Face Unlock in Outlook Android App?
This is pretty straightforward, you will just need to open the Outlook App on your phone and select the face unlock option at the start of the application.
On phones with both fingerprint and Face unlock, the outlook app will open with below options
Select the face icon on the right
Click on Confirm
