The biggest change in several decades to Microsoft’s Office suite is materializing in the new Microsoft Loop , a brainchild of the tech giant to adapt a new way of working in Office. Microsoft Loop is Microsoft’s new innovation for office work, based on collaborative Office content blocks that can be used independently, and whose content can be copied, pasted and shared with others, both offline and online.
New functions
Like Fluid, Microsoft Loop has three main elements: components, pages, and workspaces. Components are pieces of live content that can exist in multiple applications, updated in real time, and free for anyone to access from different devices. That could be a shared list on a Teams channel, for example, and they are also editable on a loop page, or notes on a calendar entry that are also available to paste into Outlook and edit in real time within an email. .
These components can also exist in the main Microsoft Loop hub, within what Microsoft calls Shared Loop workspaces. It’s almost like a project board, where you can see a list of all the Loop components and Loop pages and who is currently working on them. Think of it like a modern File Explorer, where everything is active and everything is collaborative.
Loop pages are the individual canvases where people can share and collaborate on loop components. It’s like a modern version of a whiteboard , but much more complete because you can insert and share components that people have created outside of Loop. Not everyone needs to be a part of the entire Loop page, as individual components can be edited in real time from other applications and from almost any device.
These collaborative Loop components have been Microsoft’s dream for the past few years, and it is clear that the company has been adjusting its operation to accommodate the realities of pandemic life (basically telecommuting and video conferencing meetings). A central Microsoft Loop hub seems like an improved way to track and organize these components, and a clear answer to the new era of telecommuting that many companies are implementing and adapting to.
Microsoft’s demos of Loop components have been impressive so far, but we’ll have to experience them for ourselves to really see if Loop can deliver the perfect experience Microsoft is promising. Notion has challenged Microsoft’s traditional Office way of working with many concepts that are similar to Loop, and Microsoft’s answer seems like a more powerful version than Notion.
While Microsoft has been talking about Loop (Fluid) for almost 18 months, it is still not something that is within the Office applications . Microsoft Loop components will first arrive in Teams, Outlook, and OneNote before the end of the year, with the main Microsoft Loop app likely to launch in the first quarter of 2022.
