Among the changes to the streamlined UI is the ability to jump between Workplace’s Notifications, groups and Workplace Chat features more quickly, with shortcuts placed on a left-hand navigation bar.

Workplace groups had before been placed on the right hand side of the application, but are now more prominently positioned, said Facebook. The goal: help users keep track of their groups. It is also possible to collapse the left and right-hand navigation bars to better focus on content such as the News Feed and group posts.

Other updates include a new Notifications view, which displays updates as an inbox, with the ability to apply filters based on individual preferences to find relevant information faster. The Workplace “work graph” can also be used to highlight the most relevant content and groups to users.

Karandeep Anand, Facebook vice president and head of Workplace, said that the UI changes are  aimed at making it easier to collaborate and get work done in Workplace.   

“In addition to building community at work, people want to use Workplace to collaborate and have the information they need at their fingertips,” Anand wrote in a blog post. “They want tools like Workplace Groups and a Notifications inbox that enable collaboration, reduce the reliance on email, and allow them to chat and share files quickly.”

Facebook launched Workplace in 2016 and has now amassed two million paid users, according to the latest data from the company. Customers include large deployments at Telefonica, Nestle and Virgin Atlantic.

At last year’s F8 conference, Facebook added 50 third-party app integrations with applications such as ServiceNow, Atlassian’s Jira Cloud and Microsoft Sharepoint.

This story, “Facebook’s Workplace gets updated UI, more emphasis on chat and groups” was originally published by Computerworld.