Welcome screen for Microsoft Planner showcasing a planner board.

Leadership Demands Planning

As a leader, you know the struggle of juggling many hats. Fundraisers, signatures, event planning, and grant deadlines can creep up on you. More importantly, making sure your team accomplishes the goal is critical. Your community needs you, having the tools you need to make the important decisions ensures things get done. Microsoft Planner keeps your team doing what they do best. Stay organized, keep track of priorities by tracking objectives and goals. Keep your team up to date with a centralized location with a user-friendly interface that integrates into the apps you know and love. You can use checklists to mark off important Todo's, use labels to categorize you most crucial areas like across departments or specific initiative. Add important files for your team to have access to anytime anywhere. 

Key Features and Capabilities 

• Multiple Views: Visualize tasks in various formats, including Board, List, and Timeline (Gantt) views, to suit different project management styles. 

• Task Details: Enrich tasks with descriptions, checklists, attachments, and labels to ensure clarity and context. 

• Progress Tracking: Monitor task statuses and overall plan progress through visual dashboards and charts. 

• Collaboration: Integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Teams to discuss tasks, share updates, and collaborate in real-time. 

• Advanced Features: For organizations seeking more robust project management tools, premium plans offer capabilities such as task dependencies, sprints for agile planning, custom fields, and resource management. 

Life constantly keeps you on the go, stay prepared for anything. Whether you are catching a flight or grabbing an uber. Planner is right at your fingertips on your mobile phone on both iOS and Android respectively. 

Creating Your First Plan 

Creating a new plan in planner for your team

1. Log into your Microsoft 365 account 
2. Click on the app launcher located on the top left-hand corner (Grid Icon). 
3. Navigate to the Planner application. If you don’t see the planner icon, then click on more apps. 
4. Scroll down and select Planner.
5. Inside the planner, click on "New Plan" located on the bottom-left of the screen.

Options for creating new plan using basic or templates

Choosing Between Basic or Templates 

1. Choose between "Basic" and “Basic and Premium templates.” 
2. You can click on “see all templates” for more templates. 
3. If you use a template, select the template you would like to use, then click “use template.” 
4. Otherwise click on “basic”. You will then be prompted to “Create a basic plan from scratch.”  
5. You can click on the “Add to my pinned plans” for easier access in the pinned panel in Planner.
6. In the dropdown menu select the Microsoft group or Microsoft Teams group.
7. Then select “Create.” 

Adding members with organizational search capabilities

Adding Team Members: 

By default, all members of the group will have access to the newly created plan. 

1. In the top-right corner, click on the avatar icon to open the invite member interface.
2. Add members by searching with your organization and then clicking invite. 

View filtering personal tasks that have been assigned to the user

Organize Tasks: 

1. Create tasks by clicking "+ Add task." 
2. Assign tasks to team members, set due dates, and add relevant details such as descriptions, checklists, attachments, and labels for categorization. 

Structure with Buckets: 

1. Use "Buckets" to categorize tasks into different stages or categories, such as "To Do," "In Progress," and "Completed," to visualize the workflow. 

Integrations 

Microsoft Planner integrates seamlessly with various Microsoft 365 applications to provide a cohesive work management experience: 

• Microsoft Teams: Cocreate to-do lists and make plans based on meetings and conversations. 

• Microsoft Loop: Track your team's plans alongside other online planner content in one workspace. 

• Microsoft Outlook: Check assignments from flagged emails without leaving Planner. 

• Microsoft Viva Goals: Integrate with Planner to automatically update key results and initiatives, ensuring that task progress aligns with strategic objectives

Conclusion 

The new Microsoft Planner is a powerful tool for nonprofit organizations aiming to enhance task management and team collaboration. By leveraging its intuitive interface, robust features, and seamless integrations, your organization can streamline workflows, improve productivity, and stay focused on achieving your mission. For more information and to explore how Microsoft Planner can benefit your organization, visit the official Microsoft Planner page.  Please see references below for a deeper dive.

Hyperlinks

• Microsoft Planner | Daily Task and Work Management

• Microsoft Planner Integration | Microsoft Learn

• Get started with Microsoft Planner - Microsoft Support

• Plan an event in Microsoft Planner - Microsoft Support

• Microsoft Planner on the App Store

• Microsoft Planner - Apps on Google Play