Integrating Your Task Management Into Loop

Introduction

Managing tasks in Microsoft Loop can be a bit confusing with various options. We'll walk you through task management, integrating a Planner Board, and sharing valuable tips. Plus, we'll discuss our wishlist for future improvements. Let's get started!

The Task List Component

The most obvious way to start integrating your tasks into Loop is with the “Task List” component. It takes basically no setup and is really easy to get started. But, it’s important to understand what it’s doing in the background, which we’ll explain as we go.

To get started, on a new line, type the “/” key, and find Task List in the list of components.  

Once you select it, Loop will give you a simple table with three headings: Task (Name), Assigned to, and Due date.

The table is relatively light on features, which I’m hoping evolves over time.

Click into the table and create a new item in the task list.  

Here’s where things get interesting:

As soon as you assign a task to someone, it actually creates an entirely new Planner board for this Loop page. It’s not associated with a group like Planner used to be; it copies the same permissions from the Loop board and grants permissions to that Planner board. This is what gives everyone in the Loop workspace access to the tasks.

You’ll find a link to that Planner board if you click the “Task apps” dropdown on the top right of the Task List and select Planner. You’ll also find a shortcut to Todo there as well. I’m interested to see how this evolves when the New Planner launches.

Another interesting thing you can do is make use of more Planner buckets. There isn’t a great way to designate buckets from the Loop side, but you can drag tasks to different buckets from the Planner side.

Anyway, that’s about all there is to the Task List Component. It’s simple, which is nice, but it’s a little too simple for my taste. I wish they would add one extra layer of complexity here to give me some more control of the list.

But the benefit here is that you don’t even have to think about Planner if you don’t want to, and the tasks show up synced everywhere you’d expect a typical Planner task like in Todo.

So what if you already have a Planner that you want to start from? The Task List component is not the right place to start. You’re looking for the other option, to display a Planner Board on a page.

Display a Planner Board on a Page

If you’re already managing tasks with a team in Planner and have a place you want that to display on a Loop page, fortunately there’s an easy way to make that happen.

To display a Planner board on a page, copy the link to the Planner board (either from the browser address bar, or by clicking the ellipsis in Planner and selecting “Copy link to plan”.

Then go into your Loop page and... paste the link in. That’s it. Loop will recognize the link as a link to Planner, and transform the link into a visual display of the same Planner board.

The thing I noticed right off the bat was that this is not “just showing a window into a Planner board”, they actually updated the style of the board to be a little simpler and fit in with the Loop look and feel. It’s also not quite as fully featured as the native Planner board, it’s slimmed down. You’re able to filter the view and change the grouping, but not able to select different views as you might do in Planner.

There’s one gotcha here that you DO need to worry about, and that is this integration does nothing with permissions at all. If your team member has permission to the Loop page, but NOT the Planner board, they will NOT see the Planner board displayed in Loop. They will have to be granted permissions in Planner in order to properly see it in Loop.

I think this user experience of “just pasting a link on the page” in Loop is an interesting one, but can’t say the feature itself is obvious. In my eyes it would make 100% sense to also add a “Planner board” option under the slash command where you can select from a list of your Planner boards.  

The Things That are NOT Real Tasks

It’s important to make the distinction between things that are and aren’t tasks in the Loop world, because sometimes things can look like tasks. Things like:

• Tables
• Progress trackers
• Kanban Board

‍

All these components don’t create actual tasks in the M365 world. You can use them to track progress on things like tasks, but you should not look at them as a replacement for actual task management for your team members. This situation is much like using Microsoft Lists instead of Planner. It’s just meant for “tracking”, not for “tasks”. Which leads me to my next question – before you go building anything, do you need REAL tasks?

Do You Need REAL Tasks?

Progress tracking has its place here and can actually be really useful. You should only use real tasks when you need something to show up on an individual’s task list for the day. Something they can check off the list and complete within the context of a work day. This is a nuanced situation, but you should consider how your team works before deciding.  

Another helpful question could be: Is this meant to just be a visual aid? We use these all the time with the progress tracker component to be able to display during meetings so the team can see where a project is at that moment.

My Wishlist

So these two methods of task management are a great start when it comes to a new app like Loop, but it leaves a bit to be desired. I have a few things on my wishlist I’d love to see:

More ways to see a table view

The only way to be able to see your tasks in a table format is if you start with the Task List component. There is no way to view existing Planner tasks in a tabular format. I’d love to see the option to either view the Planner board as the typical Planner grid view, or even better would be to have it display exactly as tasks in the Task component does with the simple table.

The task component needs more depth

We need the ability to add more columns. We need the ability to “open” a task and see more details. Just one extra layer of metadata would be incredibly helpful.

Filtered views

I’ve been pushing for this feature for a while now. I’d LOVE to see filtered views get saved to a Loop page. Think things like “tasks that are due this week” or “all the tasks with a certain label on them”. That way you could set up your various Loop pages as dashboards to have windows into your tasks depending on the context you want to see them in, and not have to go manually filter them every time.

Pull in tasks from Planner vs Pull in the Planner Board

I think adding some more flexibility here would be awesome. I often don’t need to see the whole Planner board, and really just want to be able to see the “tasks” from it, not the board itself. I wonder if they could give an option to pull in the tasks from a Planner board (maybe from a single bucket for example) and keep them synced as opposed to needing to get the entire board.

Conclusion

With Loop being new on the scene, it can be overwhelming to learn how this new tool integrates with existing tools. And for something as important as task management, Loop can play a huge role. I’m hopeful this guide gives you a good picture of the current state of task management in Loop so you can hit the ground running.  

Loop is a constantly evolving product, so we’re excited to see what improvements come in the near future. We’ll be sure to keep our eyes out and share what we find helpful!