So let's see how to be in loop today. Yes, everyone wants updates, everyone wants data, but that leads to a lot of mail trails, copy paste and confusion. Microsoft has introduced loop components which gives you a much better way to do this. When you are communicating with people. If it is urgent, you will do chat. If it is not urgent, you are going to send a mail. Fortunately, loop components are available in Team chat as well as outlook. So let's start with Team chat very often. We need data. We are working on some paragraph. Maybe we are working on a vision statement add to be given social media post. It may be just one paragraph but so many people are involved in finalizing and refining it. Now imagine the number of meals and discussions which will happen. Instead of that you go to team chat. I wanted some inputs from my colleagues so I put them in a group chat and I put a table yes in team chat you can actually put a table like this. When I put the table this is my message and this is chat. Who can edit my message? Only me. What does that mean? If people have to fill this table, it's impossible. They can only reply like this and it becomes very confusing. Now click on the loop component button and look at the options available. There are many options, which are actually parts of a document. So why would you need a paragraph? You're brainstorming on one very critical passage or paragraph, like a vision statement or a social media post. You're creating an event and you want the list of topics, either numbered list or bulleted list. Here we can do it in one place in chat without confusion. Now enough of talk, let's see this in action. I'm going to choose a table. It does still look like a table and let me create 2 columns and I'm going to give first column a name called Month and second amount or pipeline. It's a good idea to give a title as well so people know what we are asking. Now please do not click on send. Look at this. Now what is it saying? People with this link can edit now that's what you want by default in many customers. It will be people with this link and view. If that is the case, you have to open it and change it from read only to edit. Because the whole idea is to edit and now I apply it. Click OK Now see the difference? It's suddenly an interactive table right there in the chat. To show you what happens, I'm going to split the screen. One side is assistant, one side is boss, and now you can see that boss is typing. Assistant can see, assistant is typing. Boss can see no copy paste. More confusion. It's still a single message and that is called efficient communication. Now one of the reasons why you would use loop is for mini project management. I create a loop component task list. I put the task who is supposed to do it and the deadline and then people can update it live. Here is a word of caution. This is not a substitute to more detailed and comprehensive shared task list. Managing task sounds like one small sentence but no, there are a lot of nuances. In fact, I have created a best practices video on how to manage. All types of tasks. Have a look at it. The link is on top. Now let's talk about e-mail. Sometimes we want e-mail because it's not urgent. Multiple people are involved. I just want updates. So loop components are available in e-mail as well. Let's take a scenario. I'm the boss and I want updates from my assistant. So I create a mail as usual and they will have replied and mail trail would have got created. Now instead of typing what I'm going to do is click on the loop component button. Remember, only when your cursor is in the body text this is visible. If you click anywhere else it will get inactive. So don't worry, click in the body text. And here I'm going to choose loop component. It has all the items which are available in teams chat but one extra called Q&A. It'll add the component and now I ask the questions as usual, I'm going to send a mail. Now let's see what happens on the other side. I have again split the screen into two parts. Now an assistant opens the mail. What is the natural reaction expected? I'm going to reply and that's where this is different. You don't have to reply. Assistant is actually typing the updates right there in the received mail and boss is seeing the updates. Isn't that brilliant? That is called efficiency. Reduce mail trails, less effort, more clarity. This sounds very nice but it can get very confusing very quickly. I have sent updates, mail, same mail to three people. What is going to happen? Anybody can write any answer that will be confusing. So if it is multiple people involved and you want something similar then insert a table and create as many columns as required. And you give the name to each column. This is assistant, this is Nitin, this is yes, this is gandhar, so people know where to give their updates. So the idea is there are so many components you need to decide in a given situation which component is most suitable. Now let's see where these things are stored. Loop component data is stored in OneDrive whose OneDrive? The person who created the loop component in the 1st place. So right now as a boss, I created an e-mail and asked some questions that will be in the attachments folder. Because this need update fluid is there and when you click on it, it opens on browser and it is showing me exactly the same answers. In fact it's also showing me that assistant is still actively working on it and has this thing open. So that's the idea. Now because this is a one drive document, it has all the benefits of other documents. For example I can go here. Beauty of this is when you click on these three dots you see version history. Only the person who created the component will see the version history and you can see what was changed. My home then, so it's really, really useful now. As of now, it is available in chat and e-mail. Very soon it is likely to come in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote as well. Now if you like technical jargon, what are we really talking about? It's a complex word, but you can use it to impress someone. It's called Container Independent Co authoring. Think about it now you must be wondering, oh, in Google Drive or OneDrive, when you share files, multiple people can edit files. We can see who is editing. There isn't it same? Yes exactly it is same. The difference is instead of the whole file we are talking about individual components. So it becomes even more focused and more convenient. So start using it and become more efficient. In fact my passion is to make 1.6 billion people more efficient and you can help me in that. First thing is share it with your colleagues so that your team becomes more efficient. Let me know if you have any questions or ideas which I can share with the world and continue learning more. By subscribing to my channel and clicking the Bell icon. So till next time thank you.
