Adaptive Card-based Loop components: Collaborate on live content in Teams and Outlook

Adaptive Card-based Loop components are live and actionable units of productivity that stay in sync and can move freely across Microsoft 365 apps, starting with Microsoft Teams and Outlook. At Microsoft Build, we announced a private preview for developers to create Adaptive Card-based Loop components, and the program was launched soon after in July 2022. Since the launch, we have seen a lot of interest from the developer community and have partnered with organizations such as SAP, Zoho, Smartsheet, GitHub, Viva Sales, Decisions and Priority Matrix to build experiences that will allow their users to bring live business and project data into chats and email messages, the collaboration hubs in the modern-day digital first and hybrid work culture. In this article, we are excited to share with you the variety of scenarios that our partners will be enabling with Adaptive Card-based Loop components and what customers will experience once we launch the public preview in early 2023.

Collaborate on Live Business Data

Partners like SAP S/4HANA Cloud and Viva Sales are building Teams apps and leveraging AC-based Loop components to share live business data such as a sales order, a sales opportunity or an account information in Teams chat messages and Outlook emails. With access to the latest data and the ability to complete simple actions inline, business teams will be able to easily collaborate on the next steps and resolve work items while staying in the flow of their work in Teams or Outlook.

Example 1: SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers collaborating to get credit limit approval to unblock a sales order

An image demonstrating SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers collaborating via email to get credit limit approval to unblock a sales order.

Example 2: Viva Sales customers collaborating to close on an opportunity

An image demonstrating Viva Sales customers collaborating in Microsoft Teams to close on an opportunity.

Collaborate on Projects and Tasks

Zoho SDP, Zoho Projects, Smartsheet and a few other partners have made project and task management easier for their users by sharing Loop components with live task related information in Teams chats and Outlook emails. With distributed teams and hybrid work culture, it is ever more important to keep project and task related information up to date and AC-based Loop components makes it easier to share and update this information with your team directly in chats and emails and ensure that key fields are always reflecting the latest information. Here are some great examples of how our partners are making it easier to manage projects and tasks:

Example 3: AC-based Loop component from Zoho Projects

An image demonstrating an adaptive card-based Loop component from partner, Zoho Projects, with task-related information in an email shown in Outlook on the web.

Example 4: AC-based Loop component for IT ServiceDesk tickets from Zoho SDP

An image demonstrating an adaptive card-based Loop component for IT ServiceDesk tickets from partner, Zoho SDP, shown in Microsoft Teams.

Collaborate on Pull Requests and Bugs

We have exciting news for developers and product owners. As part of this program, we have partnered with GitHub to build AC-based Loop components with key GitHub data. Developers will be able to share live PR and Issue information with their colleagues as the team tracks all the items towards an upcoming release or work on triaging and closing an issue.

Example 5: GitHub AC-based Loop component for PR tracking

An image demonstrating a GitHub-built Adapative Card-based Loop component for PR tracking in an email shown in Outlook on the web.

AC-based Loop components empower users and are easy to build

Teams are often juggling with competing priorities and with coworkers working remotely or across different geographies and time zones, driving accountability and getting work done can often be challenging. Loop components make it easier for teams to collaborate on content from various apps and sources right within communication hubs such as Teams chat and Outlook messages. When you get a ping from your colleague asking for a follow-up, you no longer need to navigate to a different application to get all the context; the information you need is right there in the Loop component, making it easier for you to respond and saving you time.

If you are a user of one of the apps listed above and want to try these Loop components, we will be launching end user preview in early 2023. If you are interested in developing Loop components for your application, stay tuned for more on general availability of AC-based Loop components.

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