Bradley Howe
Microsoft Modern Work Technologist
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Copilot for Microsoft 365 integrates with more than just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Microsoft Loop, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Microsoft OneNote are productivity apps within the world of Microsoft 365 and have been supercharged with Copilot. In this guide we’ll introduce these apps and see how Copilot helps you work more productively with them.
What is Microsoft Loop?
Microsoft Loop is a new app from Microsoft that allows users to collaborate in real-time on dynamic, fluid content. It combines the functionality of a whiteboard, a canvas and a document, allowing users to work together on projects, brainstorm ideas and share information in a flexible and intuitive way. Microsoft Loop is accessed via loop.microsoft.com and comes with you across Microsoft 365. This means the same Loop can appear in the web app, in SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, and the M365 app stack.
Copilot in Loop
Copilot in Loop assists when finding relevant information across your organisation, generating text, and providing suggestions to improve your content. Ask Copilot to change the tone, text and format of your content, to move easily between text, lists, and tables.
Copilot in Loop has several options to help you translate your ideas onto the page. From your first prompt, you can choose to Create, Brainstorm, Blueprint, or Describe your prompt on the page. Each request enables a different response from Copilot. Finally, changes to a real-time collaborative space can be a challenge to keep up with. Copilot in Loop can track all changes in a summary to bring you up to speed with other people’s contributions.
What is Microsoft Whiteboard?
Microsoft Whiteboard is a digital whiteboard app that allows users to collaborate in real-time on a virtual canvas. It provides a freeform drawing surface where users can write, draw, and add images, notes, and other content. It is designed to be used in meetings to facilitate brainstorming, planning, and teamwork.
Copilot in Whiteboard
Copilot in Whiteboard helps you to organise, discover, and summarise content. Copilot in Whiteboard can even suggest ideas for you; in Microsoft Whiteboard, click ‘Suggest’ and Copilot will analyse your whiteboard and your prompts to help you get going on your ideas. The ‘Suggest’ prompt has a ‘Generate More’ button included, meaning Copilot can create reasonable ideas that you can enhance and build from.
It's no secret that when you mind dump on a page, it can look messy. And when trying to pitch this to an audience, you need something that looks structured. Copilot in Whiteboard has a ‘Categorise’ function which analyses your ideas, drawings, and sticky notes, and reorganises them into categories with headings. You spend more time working on your ideas and let Copilot focus on the organisation.
What is OneNote?
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking app that allows users to create, organise, and share notes, drawings, and other media content. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite and is available on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. OneNote is designed to help users capture and organise information, collaborate with others, and access their notes from anywhere.
Copilot in OneNote
Copilot in OneNote can help you to summarise your notes, a selection of text, a page or entire sections of notes into a shareable format. Copilot in OneNote also appears on the right-hand side of OneNote and gives users the ability to create an actionable to-do list directly from your notes.
Copilot in OneNote also helps users write content. For example, Copilot can "Create a draft for a project to develop a new opportunity tracking app. Use the technical specifications and customer feedback on this page". Copilot in OneNote will produce this draft in the Copilot window, for you to copy and paste into OneNote. This saves time that is needed to start writing plans, ideas, and notes to share.
Copilot in OneNote can also answer questions: "Which event that I planned had the most people attending?" - Copilot searches your notes for content that is related to your question. This makes it much easier to find your important information.