In this chapter, you’ll finally get to try out Cortana, Microsoft’s virtual assistant. You’ll see how it can help you with answering questions, carrying out online searches, managing your calendar, and more. There are many ways it can make your life easier.
Discover Cortana
Start by clicking on the Cortana icon:
You’ll find this in the taskbar to the right of the search bar. Click the icon, and you’ll see what the Cortana interface looks like:
The menu icon at the top left gives you access to Cortana’s settings.
Here are a few things Cortana can do for you:
Schedule reminders
Manage your meetings
Send emails
Create and manage lists
Search for places and information on the internet
Find files and apps on your computer
Tell you the time.
We’ll soon be putting all of this into practice and mastering the different features of Cortana, but first, we need to set it up.
Set up Cortana
To set up Cortana, click on the settings button at the top left as we saw above. First, let’s modify the voice activation settings. Click "Voice Activation > Voice Activation Permissions" and enable the setting to let Cortana respond to its keyword.
You can modify the keyboard settings to use the keyboard shortcut Windows + C, which does the same thing as the automatic voice launch. This way, the assistant will launch when you use the keyboard shortcut rather than when you speak to it.
Follow along with the steps in the video below to make sure you understand how to change Cortana’s settings before we continue:
Cortana is now set up. Time for your first search!
Search With Cortana
Searching with Cortana is incredibly easy. Try to search for “OpenClassrooms”, for example:
If you have a microphone, just say “Hey Cortana” (or use Windows + C) and then say “OpenClassrooms”.
If you don’t have a microphone, you can also type your search into the search bar.
Cortana will then search your computer and the Internet using Microsoft’s search engine, Bing. It can also show results from other sources such as dictionaries or Wikipedia, for example.
Cortana can also find files or apps stored on your computer. It also allows you to launch an app directly. All you have to do is say “launch” followed by the name of the app.
For example, if you want to launch Firefox, just say “launch Firefox”.
Now let’s look at how you can add an event to your calendar.
Manage Your Calendar With Cortana
Managing your calendar just got easier with Cortana! To add an event to your calendar, just say “add an event”. Cortana will then ask for the date, time, and subject of the event.
Watch the video below to see how I have used Cortana to perform really useful tasks on my Windows 10 computer!
Now that you’re familiar with some of Cortana’s features I encourage you to practice using them, like everything else we’ve covered so far. It will be worth your while learning how to use Cortana so you can train your colleagues to use it, too.
Your Turn!
🎯 Today's mission at CleanFuture: Your time at CleanFuture so far has been productive and very busy!
Your line manager has asked you to schedule a meeting with her so you can update her on your progress since joining the company. She has asked that you book a 60-minute meeting at 10 am on Tuesday morning.
⚙️ The actions you need to take:
Use Cortana to book an hour-long meeting at the time recommended by your line manager.
Give the meeting the title of “Line Manager Meeting.”
✅ Double-check your work: You’ll know when you have completed the exercise when Cortana confirms the meeting and it appears in your Calendar
Let's Recap!
Cortana is Microsoft’s virtual assistant.
It responds to your voice commands, tell you the time, schedule events, write emails, search for documents, and more.
Great work! You’re now familiar with a very useful feature of Windows 10, Cortana. As well as being able to search the Internet for information, you can now schedule meetings and set reminders with Cortana. Hopefully, you have been able to use voice commands to get the most out of the assistant, as well. Coming up, we’ll connect additional devices to our Windows 10 computer.
