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Loop or OneNote? Which to use?

Oct 3, 2024 | News

Microsoft Loop and OneNote are both tools for organising and collaborating on notes, but they serve different purposes and offer some unique and distinct features. It’s a question we get asked when we show customers Loop so lets take a look!

Microsoft Loop

Microsoft Loop is a fairly new tool designed to facilitate collaboration in a more dynamic, flexible, and interactive way. It allows you to create components like lists, tasks and tables that can be shared and edited in real-time across various Microsoft apps like Teams, Word and Outlook. Microsoft say the goal of Loop is to break down barriers between different tools, enabling you to stay connected and updated on changes across platforms.

  • Real-time Collaboration: Loop’s strength lies in its ability to let multiple people edit the same piece of rich content at once, with changes instantly visible to everyone. This is useful for quick updates and teamwork.
  • Modular Components: Instead of traditional documents, Loop allows users to create “components” that can live inside multiple apps. For example, you can create a task list in Loop, then embed it into a Teams chat or an email, and anyone can update it from there.
  • Cross-App Integration: It’s integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem, meaning that these components can appear and function in apps like Word, Excel, or Outlook.

OneNote

OneNote is a digital notebook designed for note-taking, organisation and storing information. It’s really helpful for managing a lot of text-based information over time, offering a notebook structure with sections and pages that can hold text, images, links and attachments. OneNote excels at being a personal or team knowledge repository. It is almost like a big electronic book!

  • Structured Organisation: OneNote uses a familiar notebook format, divided into sections and pages. This is great for long-term projects where information needs to be grouped neatly. It is flexible but still offers great structure to information.
  • Multimedia Notes: You can easily integrate text, images, audio recordings and even handwritten notes into OneNote, making it ideal for meetings, research, and lectures.
  • Offline Access: OneNote allows you to access and edit your notes offline, making it useful for working on the go.

When to Use Microsoft Loop:

  1. Real-Time Collaboration: If you’re working on a project with a team and need to constantly share and update components (like a task list or table) in real time, Loop is ideal.
  2. Interactive, Modular Content: When you want to create content that lives across multiple platforms and allows for easy updates from any location, Loop’s modular components are more efficient.
  3. Short-Term Projects: For fast-moving, collaborative projects where flexibility and instant updates matter, Loop is the go-to option.
  4. Differing Content Types:  The components feature of Loop makes using different medias such as images, graphs, notes, lists and to-dos really simple.

When to Use OneNote:

  1. Note-Taking and Long-Term Organization: If you’re collecting information over time and need a clear structure, OneNote’s notebook format is great for organising long-term projects.
  2. Offline Access: When you’re on the go or in an environment with unreliable internet, OneNote provides offline access to your notes, ensuring you can work anytime.
  3. Personal Use and Research: For individual note-taking, class notes, or personal projects, OneNote is a more intuitive choice with its ability to store diverse types of content in one place.

So all in all they are both great tools and can be used for similar things, but there are some core differences which would result in you selecting one over the other.

  • Microsoft Loop is best for real-time collaboration and quick updates across different apps.
  • OneNote is ideal for structured, long-term note-taking and organising information in a more traditional notebook format.

If you’re managing a project that requires constant communication and shared tasks, Microsoft Loop is the right tool. If you need a place to store and organise detailed long term notes, OneNote is the better option.

Best of all, both options are included with M365 licensing so why not give them a go!

For more advice about your specific needs speak to VMhosts!

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