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Microsoft To Do Blog
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Unlock new task management experiences with Microsoft Loop components in Outlook email, Teams chat.

Swapna_Ninan's avatar
Swapna_Ninan
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 10, 2023

You and your team may already be using Loop components to stay up to date and in sync on fast-moving projects. Loop components are portable pieces of content that stay in sync across all the places they are shared like Outlook and Teams. 

In this blog we are excited to share the new ways of task management that help teams think, plan, and create together. Now tasks created via Loop components sync across Microsoft 365 apps like Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner, and Tasks app in Teams.  

 

Task management while collaborating has never been easier. 

Creating a Loop task list in Outlook email 

In the ‘Insert’ tab of your new email, you will see an option ‘Loop Components’ which further has multiple options. Choose the option ‘task List’ to create a new task list in the email body. You can add new tasks to this task list, assign users to it and add the due dates corresponding to each task.  

 

Each user with a task assigned will be automatically added to the ‘To’ list of the email as illustrated below. 

You can create a task list in Teams chat too: 

And assign tasks to the users. 

 

View your tasks list in Microsoft Planner. 

Many teams use Microsoft Planner, a light-weight planning application, for visual task management. That’s why tasks in Loop components are also integrated with Planner to make team task management even easier. You can click on the three-dots menu to see an option called Open in Planner. 

 

Manage your Tasks list in Microsoft Planner. 

With Loop components integrated to task applications in Microsoft 365: 

  • You can create task lists via Loop components in Outlook and Teams and see them as a plan in Microsoft Planner. As a user of Microsoft Planner, you will be able to edit these tasks via Planner interfaces and the Task list components always stay in sync across the different surfaces they live.   
  • You can amend the title of the task, due date or even change the assignees of the task via planner interfaces.  
  • You can also leverage other capabilities like adding labels or adding notes that Microsoft Planner currently offers.  
  • All the users who have access either to the plan or are participants of the chat will have access to the plan itself. 
  • All users who are assigned a task will get notifications regarding assignment, as well as reminders about due date.   

 

View your assigned tasks in Microsoft To Do 

With Microsoft Loop integrated into task applications in Microsoft 365 you will also experience the goodness of task aggregation via To Do. 

  • For the task lists created in Loop workspaces, you will also see the tasks assigned to you in the ‘Assigned to me’ list of Microsoft To do. 
  • You can leverage the capabilities of your personal task management app to manage the Loop created tasks, like ‘Add to My Day’ or ‘add Notes’. 

 

Pretty cool, right? We can’t wait for you to start using Loop components with Planner and To Do, move these components around different surfaces including emails, chats or even Loop app! And do let us know what you think in the comments below or connect with us on Twitter and Facebook. You can also write to us at todofeedback@microsoft.com. 

 

Note: The task list sync of Loop components in Outlook email and Teams chats is available in Preview 

 

Updated May 11, 2023
Version 8.0
  • PMM03's avatar
    PMM03
    Copper Contributor

    Hughes818  Has anyone at Microsoft answered this?  I need to be able to send the loop tasks to my the teams Plan in planner.  I don't need several locations with tasks for one particular project.  It should be as simple as add task at the end of the loop row and you select the plan you want it to show up in.  Swapna_Ninan Please advise.

  • Hughes818's avatar
    Hughes818
    Iron Contributor

    RobOK We were really looking forward to the "Meeting Notes" Wiki service being replaced by a version using the OneNote service.  But that's not the route Microsoft took.  Instead, they decided on the Loop service (I'm still scratching my head over that one).

     

    If you disable Loop, you will lose the built-in "Meeting Notes" feature.  You will just see the ole' fashioned meeting details when you open the event...there will be no loop component at the bottom.  Since our users never liked the previous "Meetings Note" feature, they have just been centralizing their meeting notes within their personal or team OneNote notebooks.  They also utilize the Notes tab of their Teams channels.  So, in our case, they are just continuing to use the process they have been using.  However, maybe the upcoming Loop integration with OneNote will make it so users can still centralize those meeting notes...and then we can re-enable Loop.  I guess we will have to see.

     

    Here is the info for disabling Loop:

    Manage Loop components in OneDrive and SharePoint | Microsoft Learn

     

  • RobOK's avatar
    RobOK
    Bronze Contributor

    Great input! So in Teams now, when you hit Notes, what shows up? We get a Loop component for Agenda and tasks. How do you disable Loop.

     

    There could be CoPilot in Loop, but Loop is not a prerequisite for CoPilot I wouldn't think?

     

  • Hughes818's avatar
    Hughes818
    Iron Contributor

    Hi Rob...no sir.  For now, we have disabled Loop Components altogether.  Until we have a better understanding of where it fits in with the other tools, we're going to wait and see how the industry adopts it first.  We're having a difficult enough time of helping users understand when to use To Do, Planner, Project for the Web, Project for Operations, SharePoint Lists (yes...Microsoft says those can be used for task management too...unfortunately that can lead users to feel alienated...since they don't integrate with the Tasks App in Teams).  I also saw that Planner for personal use is also coming soon...so that even muddies up the water for To Do.  Project for the Web tasks are also supposed to come to the Tasks App in Teams in the near future.  Adding Loop Components just creates even more confusion...so we're holding off for now.  We might wait until they are integrated with OneNote...so that Loop Components for meetings can be centralized in a notebook...I think that will be sometime around February...that's another area where Loop Components just seems to create more confusion.  We also know that Loop is a requirement for Copilot...but we hit the brakes on that too.  I think Microsoft may have temporarily lost its way when it comes to thinking about "cohesion"...hopefully that becomes more of a focus in the future...because right now...end users are starting to doubt they have their best interests at heart.

  • Sara_L_C's avatar
    Sara_L_C
    Copper Contributor

    When will this  be available for personal accounts?

  • Hughes818's avatar
    Hughes818
    Iron Contributor

    I'm a bit confused.  Is it really creating a new Plan in Planner for each task list?  You can't choose an existing plan?  Here is the problem I see with that from and end user's perspective.  Let's say there are several members of a Microsoft Team that is already using Planner within their team.  Now let's say over the course of a couple months, 10 emails are generated as part of daily work/stand-ups where team members decide to use that feature to identify additional tasks that need to be done.  Well, without them being able to pick from a list of existing Plans, it sounds like each of those emails will result in 10 additional Plans being created to hold tasks from each email.  You must be kidding, right?  Also, I hear that the new meetings experience coming to Teams is going to use Loop as well, also with the capability to add tasks within the meeting notes.  That could result in the same issue if they can't create those tasks in an existing Plan.  Let's say there are 5 team meetings where action items are identified within the meeting notes in the form of tasks.  Once again, the team will be faced with managing their existing Planner Plan and 5 additional Plans as a result of each of those meetings.  Please tell me I'm wrong.  If I'm correct, that is an enormous oversight by Microsoft...users just won't get it...why so many task creation tools in this platform?...a question I often get asked...and I never have a good answer for them.