Discover Topics

Discovering content in the flow of work

You can discover topics in Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.

SharePoint

You can interact with topics in SharePoint pages throughout your organization. Topics will be highlighted in grey and linked to a topic card. 

1. Hover over the grey highlighted text.

2. A topic card will appear.
   
   

3. In the card, select View details.

4. Open Topic page.

SharePoint Topics pane

You can interact with topics found on SharePoint pages throughout your organization by using the Topics pane. 

1. Select Topics in the top navigation.

2. This will bring up the Topics pane, which will show all of the topics that have been identified on the page that you have access to.

3. Hover over a topic in the pane to see the topic card, which has a description of the topic and related resources.

4. Select a topic to jump to the point on the page where it's mentioned.

5. Under Discover related topics, you can see topics that aren't highlighted on the page but might also be relevant.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Discover topics by searching keywords.

1. Select a keyword or phrase in the document, spreadsheet or slide.

2. Right-click the highlighted text and select the search option. 

3. The available topic will appear at the top of the search results. 

Outlook

You can add Topics to your Outlook on the web emails. 

1. In the message box, type # and select the topic you want to add from the autogenerated list.
   
   

2. Email recipients can hover over the highlighted topic to expand a topic card to learn more.
   
   

3. In the top-right corner of sent emails, the # symbol will display the number of topics found within the email.
   
   

You can also get connected to potential contributors.

1. Hover over the person’s name to open their profile card.
   
   

2. On the profile card, you can view a person’s contact information, their team within the organization, and any topics they are associated with.

Feed

When a SharePoint object that’s already associated with a topic shows in your Feed, you’ll be able to see a corresponding Topic pill that you can use to gain more in-depth understanding and context. Only SharePoint objects that are already associated with a topic are highlighted with a Topic pill, so the number of Topic pills you see can vary depending on the SharePoint objects that are present in your feed. If you don’t see any Topic pills, you might not have any associated SharePoint objects in your feed. You’re likely to see more Topic pills as you continue to engage with Topics and Feed.

Access your feed by opening a new tab in your Edge browser and looking for Microsoft Feed. You can also go to Office.com and select the Feed icon on the left rail. 

Profile cards

When you open a person’s profile card in a Microsoft 365 web app (such as SharePoint or Outlook), you’ll be able to see which topics they’re associated with. Select a topic pill in a profile card to learn more about the topic. Blue pills represent confirmed connections, while gray pills are suggested connections.

Choose whether suggested topics show up in your profile card by opening your profile card and selecting Settings. If you turn off suggested topics in your profile card, they might still show up elsewhere, such as topic pages and search results.

Teams

In Teams, you can reference Topics in your 1:1 or group chats by using hashtags. 

To add a topic to a chat, use # and type a phrase to see if a topic exists. If there are topics already identified, the topic picker will show a list of topics to choose from. 

Search for topics

Use the search function to find topics when using Bing and Office apps, including SharePoint. 

If a topic exists in your organization and is found, it will display the result in the topic answer suggestion format. 

Search in Bing. You can find topics in Bing by searching for a specific topic. 

Search in SharePoint. Search for topics in your organization in SharePoint by using the search bar. 

See also

Share knowledge through Topics 

How to use Topics

Discover Topics