Windows Phone 8 smartphones have the ability to join groups of people together to share photos, calendars, and private messages – in the form of Rooms. Here’s why you need Rooms in your life.

Rooms are a really useful way of being able to share private information with a select group of people.

For instance, you can share calendars, notes (via OneNote), photos, your location, and send private messages between every member in that room; some of these options aren’t possible when using Groups.

Let’s think about the different groups of people that might benefit from the added interactivity of a Room:

• Family
• Closest friends (BFFs)
• Study group
• Colleagues
• Sunday Football team
• Carpool group
• School run
• Local residents association

Creating a Room for any of these groups will be an advantage for a variety of reasons.

If you’re always trying to juggle your work and home life in order to meet family requirements, then create a shared calendar in a ‘Family room’. Now, rather than phoning or texting everyone to find out where they’re going to be, and when, just look at the calendar.

And, if something crops up, as it always does, send a message to the family and change the calendar so everyone knows.

If you’re still at school and studying for exams, create yourself a ‘Study room’, or ‘The Library’, if you want to get creative. Invite the people in your study group so you can stay better organised.

Again, sharing a calendar is going to be important to keeping your after-school activities in sync and so you know if your friends are coming to yours, or vice-versa.

As any student will know, making notes is just a part of learning. Notes are easily created right from inside the Room by tapping the plus symbol in the Notes section. This will open OneNote where you can add lists, to-do lists, images, or audio recorded from your phone. These notes will automatically be shared with the entire Room.

If you’ve got a tight group of friends and you like to hit the tiles at the weekend, a ‘BFF’ or ‘Mates’ Room is perfect.

With all of you in one room, you’ve got yourself a 24/7 private ‘ruckus room’. Feel free to chip in with the banter, the jokes, the insults, as you would with your closest friends. Did one of you fall asleep in the taxi on the way home? Don’t forget to share the photo amongst yourselves for a good laugh.

These are just a few ways of getting the best out of Rooms, we’re sure each and every one of you has a unique way of putting it to use.

Creating Rooms

To get started you’ll need to head to your People Hub and swipe left or right until you find the Together pane. Tap on the plus symbol at the bottom and select Room.

Give your Room a name. It can be as exciting, or as strait-laced, as you want it to be; it’s up to you.

Next, you’ll need to find the people you want to invite into this room, and you do that by tapping the plus symbol on the screen and picking people from your People Hub list.

The other features of Rooms are self-explanatory. The Chat area is where you send SMS-style messages (including your location, if you want) to everybody; Calandar is where you add a new calendar event, Photos for photos and Notes for notes.

If at any point you want to add more members to the Room, you can do this in the Members section.

It’s also here that you can give the Room a unique background image, by pulling up the bottom menu. You don’t have to change it, of course, but it does give the room an extra-personal feel.

With a Room(s) created, make sure you pin it t your Start screen so that you’re only one tap away from all the latest news, gossip, schedule, or photos.

You can have five Rooms on your phone, and each Room can have 10 members.

Has making a Room made your life any easier? Let us know, below.

Image credit: Kevin Marsh