6 Helpful Cortana Commands
If you’re a Windows 10 or Windows Phone user you’ll probably know about Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant. Like Siri on Apple devices, or Google Now, Cortana is more than just a tool for searching by voice command. Here are six of the great new things Cortana can do to help you at work.
Calendar management: ‘What’s on my schedule?’
With Cortana you can ask your device what upcoming events you’ve got in your diary. Cortana can access your calendar, including your Outlook calendar, and you can even ask her to tell you about scheduled events on different dates. She’ll understand a voice query such as ‘What do I have planned this weekend?’, for example.
Travel: ‘How long will it take to get to…?’
If you’re on the move, Cortana can tell you how long it will take to get from where you are to your destination, using your maps and location data. It doesn’t have to start with your current location. You can ask how to get from any specified place to another, whether it’s near or far away.
Travel: “What’s the weather like?”
This is another useful command for people on the move. To use this function, your location finder must be enabled. Cortana can tell you about the weather anywhere in the world, not just at your current location, or nearby.
Information retrieval: ‘Show me my notes’
If you use Microsoft’s OneNote, this command will speedily bring up the information you have stored. You can also specify that you want to hear the entries for a particular day, or another time period, like the previous year.
Efficiency: ‘Set a reminder’
You could set a reminder manually, or scribble it on a piece of paper or even on your hand. Cortana will do it quickly for you. The voice recognition technology is advanced enough to make out what you’re saying, so you can just say what you need to be reminded about, such as a meeting after lunch. On a Windows Phone, if all the right apps are enabled, including location, Cortana can notify you of a task if you’re in the area that’s specified.
Timekeeping: ‘Create an Alarm’
You can easily instruct Cortana to set an alarm, in much the same way as you would set a reminder. Cortana can set the alarm to go off just once, or at the same time each day.
For time-saving and convenience, Cortana is proving to be a useful tool for busy professionals. For more on how to take advantage of office and other technology, subscribe to our blog for helpful news, tips, and alerts.