- Microsoft introduces Loop, an online hub to organize your documents and collaborate with other people.
- The service offers workspaces, pages, components, and Copilot integration.
- Microsoft Loop is available now as a free preview view that anyone can sign up for.
Microsoft Loop is a new online hub that provides a space to work with Office apps and manage tasks and projects. The online tool is now available as a preview that anyone can access for free, even though it’s part of the Microsoft 365 subscription offering.
If you have seen Google Workspaces or Notion, you already know what Loop has to offer. The service is made up of workspaces, pages, and components that allow you to organize your documents and other tasks.
Loop Workspaces allows you to create a space to share with others to collaborate on different projects. You can access workspaces from the homepage. As you create a new space, the system can surface related documents that you can add to the project to organize them into “pages.”
If your project needs to grow or change, you can always import documents and other types of content.
Inside the Loop Pages, you have different tools, including reactions and comments. Microsoft Loop also features notifications to keep you in the “loop” of your projects and tasks.
The collaboration hub also comes with Copilot, a chatbot for Microsoft 365 products that can help you create and brainstorm ideas using AI suggestions.
Also, the Loop Components feature lets you share information with people outside the workspace. Loop Components are smaller pieces from the system that are in sync across the places they have been shared, such as in a document, email, or anywhere the component appears embedded. As part of the components, you can create lists, tables, paragraphs, and more across the Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word (web), Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. You can always see where Components were shared and who has access to them.
Search in Loop is also an essential feature since it lets you search relevant Office documents you have been working on when you created the workspace.
You can also use various commands, such as “/” to add images, labels, emojis, tables, and more while on a page. The “@” shortcut makes importing files or tagging a colleague to the page easier.
In this preview, the system supports up to 50 people editing in the workspace at one time, but usually, you don’t want to have more than 12 people working on a project.
When working with projects and tasks, you can access many common features, such as progress trackers, custom labels, and the ability to sync content to Microsoft To-Do and Planner.
If you want access to the web version of Loop, you must sign up for the preview with your Microsoft or Azure Active Directory account. The service will also come to iOS and Android, but the company has yet to announce the availability.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows expert and the Editor-in-Chief who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He is also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 12 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows, software, and related technologies, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.