Microsoft announced that the Loop app will be licensed for four Microsoft 365 product SKUs (two for SME, two for enterprise). Preview users that don’t have one of the chosen licenses are unaffected, at least for now. The licensing decision doesn’t affect the use of Loop components in applications like Outlook and Teams chat, but it is part of a trend to license new functionality in Microsoft 365 rather than the older Office 365 products.
A recent update for the Loop app allows users to create and collaborate on code blocks. The editor is very simple and doesn’t check syntax, but it could be a way for people (within a tenant) to collaborate and sketch out potential code solutions to problems. You can create Loop components from code blocks and use those components with Teams chat and Outlook messages, if you remember to stay within your tenant.
The Microsoft 365 admin center contains a new option to enable the Loop app for everyone in a tenant. The setting overrides a previous cloud policy used to control access to the Loop app. It’s the kind of change you’d expect to see as an app makes it way through preview to the point when it becomes generally available. In other Loop news, the Loop app is available as a PWA through the Microsoft Store.
When Microsoft released the preview of the Loop app, we figured out that Loop uses a special form of SharePoint Online to store its workspaces and pages. Now we know that Loop uses Syntex Repository Services (SharePoint Embedded), a new offering that allows apps to create storage partitions within SharePoint Online and use those repositories to store the files needed by the app. It’s still early days for both the Loop app and Syntex Repository Services (in private preview) and many operational details need to be explored, but the new offering is an interesting choice for app developers when it comes to deciding where to store their data.
