Are you still using Excel or spreadsheet to manage your project or tracking your tasks with your teams?
Use Microsoft Loop instead and save you at least 25% of your time.
Transcript: Better Project and Tasks Management with Microsoft Loop
Are you still using Excel or spreadsheets to manage your projects or track your PAs with your team? Use this instead and save at least 25% of your time. Did you know that 25-40% of a project manager’s time is spent tracking and monitoring, 20-30% on documentation, and 5-10% on administration?
In this video, I’ll show you a new tool that can free up time spent on project tracking and monitoring. If you’re familiar with Excel or Google Sheets, this will look similar. The beauty is Microsoft Loop – a new tool launched last year designed for team collaboration. You won’t need to track different versions of Excel reports. Every team member can work on the same project tracker simultaneously. You can create a simple dashboard like this or track multiple projects on one page. The best part? You can see real-time progress updates.
Let’s jump in. This is a project tracker with tables similar to Excel. The difference? For dates, just click here to select. For stages, you can create checklists – something much harder in Excel. I’ll show you step-by-step how to do this. Watch until the end where I’ll share a shortcut to create this tracker in seconds. If you’re new to Loop, check my previous video on Microsoft Loop components. Today, I’ll focus on just one component: the table.
Let’s create a table from scratch. First column: Action (default is “Hax”). Second column: Owner. Click the plus sign to add more columns – let’s make six total. We’ll add Handling Date, Target Date, Project Stage, Checklist, and Notes. For the Owner column, change the type to “Person.” When shared via Teams or Outlook, team members’ names will appear automatically. For external collaborators, keep it as text and type names manually.
Date columns automatically format correctly. For stages, change the column type to “Labels.” Create a new label group called “Stage” with options: To Do, In Progress, and Complete. You can customize with colors or emojis. The Checklist column is special – type “/” to insert a checklist component. This is much easier than in Excel. Notes can include text, images, or other components. Once set up, you can sort rows or columns by dragging.
The real power comes with different views. Switch to “Combine View” to see progress at a glance: how many tasks are completed, in progress, or not started. Changes update in real-time across all views. Finally, here’s a time-saving tip: use templates! Type “/template” to access pre-made trackers. Customize one as your master template, then duplicate it for new projects with Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V.
If you found this helpful, please share with colleagues and subscribe for more content. I’m Andrew – see you in the next video!
