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These days our lives are cluttered with digital messages allowing us to easily overlook important information. It has become increasingly complicated to consolidate data scattered across communications making it difficult to discern things like what remains outstanding on the originally emailed task list.
Asking for input sometimes feels like a can of worms when you have the tedious job of combining the feedback into one source. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were genuine real-time collaboration in a single source so everyone could be in the loop?
What are Loop Components?
Microsoft Loop has broad capabilities to help make this happen, but this article explores Loop Components specifically.
These individual pieces can be inserted into a variety of different Microsoft applications such as Teams, Outlook, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Word 365 Online for collaborative purposes, often by mentioning the names of those from whom you desire input.
By inserting a Loop Component into one of these locations, anyone who has been granted access can update the data so that everyone can see the real-time changes together. This is great for brainstorming tasks, co-authored document modification, tracking to-do list items, or determining agenda items for a Teams meeting.
How to create them
Once in the desired program, navigate to the section where you would typically type a message. For example, a new document, a new Outlook message, or in the message box of Teams. From there click the Loop icon either located on the Insert menu or in Teams at the end of the message box.
Once clicked, a menu will appear with multiple options for the type of component to insert. The options on this menu will vary depending upon which program you are inserting from. Click the Component type such as Bulleted List, Task List, Paragraph and begin typing as normal using this new format.
The text will be inside of a Loop Component container to reflect the boundaries of where this data starts and stops. In a Teams or Outlook message it is automatically shared with those included on the message that are internal to your organization. Within Word, it will be shared with those who have access to the Word document.
How to update the Loop Component
Anyone with access to the component can either navigate to the initial location such as the email message or open from the URL. It is also possible to go directly to loop.microsoft.com and navigate by name to the desired component.
To update the data, click inside the component and modify the text as desired. If from an email, no email response is necessary just click to edit the Loop Component in real time. Indicators will be present to represent anyone else in the paragraph at the same time as you and provide a list of who and where other changes occurred. By clicking on the picture indicating a change, a menu will appear listing the history of the changes to that area.
Options within a Loop Component
Once inside, the purple and blue logo will appear in the top left corner. Hover over logo to get the following command names.
Opening in browser: The name of the component will appear to the right of the logo. Click the hyperlinked name to edit within the Loop Online website and see the URL in the address bar.
Opening from within this page allows for several options otherwise unavailable including these:
Rename: Click three dots in upper right corner of page and choose “Rename”. Click Update.
Version History: Click three dots in upper right corner of page and choose “Version History” to see each date and time list was modified and by whom with an option to restore.
Additional Share Options: Upon clicking one of these options, a URL will be copied that if provided will allow direct access to the Loop component page. Others can be explicitly invited to work on this component by clicking the Settings option.
Delete: To fully delete the component, click filename within browser and browse up a level to where the files are stored. Now delete the specific loop file listed.
Shared Locations: This option displays a hyperlinked listing of all locations this component has been shared.
Copying The Component: Although the list of Component types differs within each tool, any type of component can be copied to another tool. So even though Word does not offer the option to create a Task List Component, one can be copied from Teams and pasted into Word using this command.
See Who Has Access: This provides a view of who has access to this component, to alter the access open the component in the browser.
Remove From Current Location: Use this within Word, to remove from the current location. It will still exist in the backend until deleted permanently.
Conclusion
Allow this tool to thread together all your information with minimal effort on your part so that you can “stay in the loop.”•
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Deanna Marquez ([email protected]) is a co-owner of the Indianapolis-based legal technology company Modern Information Solutions LLC. Areas of service include traditional IT services, software training and litigation support including trial presentation services. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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