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Planner Blog
4 MIN READ

Collaborate confidently with Task History in Microsoft Planner

AlexanderLahuerta's avatar
Jul 01, 2024

Introduction

The task history feature in Microsoft Planner helps task owners stay on top of their tasks. You can quickly find recent progress that has been made or task changes that have impacted the schedule. Edits to tasks such as adding the task to a sprint, changing its duration, giving it a goal, or changes to other tasks that affect the schedule of work all appear in the Changes pane in Task Details.

Watch this 1-minute video for a quick overview of Task History.


If you’re just getting started with Planner, learn more about what we’ve been working on in this recent blog post . Or jump in by opening the updated Planner App in Microsoft Teams.Getting Started

Task history is available to all Planner users who have a Project Plan 3 or greater license. If you do not have a premium Project license, you can simply click on the diamond icon within the app where you can begin your free 30-day trial of advanced capabilities in Planner or request a premium license.

  1. First, open a premium plan in Planner.
  2. Open task details for any task. You can reach it by clicking the task details icon in the task grid, or by clicking a task card in the board view.

 

    3. The task history icon is in the top corner of task details. Click it to open the changes pane.

 

 

Details about the recorded changes

All the changes a user makes to a task are recorded in task history. Details for each edit include who made the change, when they made it, what property was changed, the previous value, and the new value.

History for a task includes edits such as:

  • Adding or removing labels
  • Changing the duration or effort
  • Editing checklists
  • Adding or removing attachments
  • Edits to any custom columns

 

Changes made to other tasks that impact the selected task

Planner makes it easy to track dependencies between tasks. These links mean it is crucial for task owners to understand how changes across the plan impacts their work. Task history makes it easy to identify these changes and stay on track. Changes made to other tasks that impact either the start date or finish date of the selected task have a history record that shows high-level information about the edit.

In the example shown below, Diego Siciliani edited the duration of a related task called “Review organizational marketing strategy.” This task edit moved the start date of the currently selected task.

 

 

Navigating to related task edits

Clicking the task title in a history record takes you to the related task and highlights the relevant edit. In this example, clicking the task title of the record shown in the above example opens the “Review organizational marketing strategy” task and highlights the change in duration. Pressing the back button in Teams returns you to the previously selected task.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don’t I see the task history button?
Task History is only available to users working in premium plans who have a Project Plan 3 or greater license. If you do not have a premium Project license, you can simply click on the diamond icon within the app where you can begin your free 30-day trial of advanced capabilities.

Will edits made by users without a Project Plan 3 license be shown in the Changes pane?
Yes. Edits made by all users, regardless of their license, will appear in the changes pane. Only users with a Project Plan 3 or greater license will be able to open the changes pane to view these edits.

Is task history available in basic plans?
No. Task history -along with other powerful features such as custom columns, goals, and timeline view, gives teams with more sophisticated project management requirements the tools they need to keep their plans on track. These features are only available in premium plans.

Can my team build Power BI reports using Task History data?
Yes. Task history data is stored in Microsoft Dataverse and can be queried using Power BI. Learn more about the schema by visiting our support page.

Do edits to tasks using the Project scheduling APIs appear in task history?
No. Only edits to tasks made using the grid, board, or timeline views appear in the Changes pane.

My team uses Project in Power Apps, do edits made in that context appear in task history?
Edits made in the grid, board, goals, people, and timeline views appear in Task History. Any edits to tasks using Power Apps forms as well as any edits to columns added to tables in Dataverse are not shown in task history.

My team has customized Project in Power Apps, will task history work in our environment?

Yes, but your administrator needs to ensure that they are testing their customizations with the latest release, including any customization of security roles in Dataverse.

 

Learn more about the new Planner

 

Share your feedback

You can share feedback through the new Planner app in Teams directly. You can also send us your feedback via the Planner Feedback Portal. 
Here is how you can share your feedback directly from within the new Planner app.

 

 

Updated Nov 12, 2024
Version 6.0
  • nulln1270's avatar
    nulln1270
    Copper Contributor

    I've been looking into extracting history from Dataverse as mentioned in the FAQ above [since the history feature is absurdly paywalled from the O365 license tier] but haven't been able to find the so-called "Project History" table anywhere in the Dataverse tables or schemas.  Could someone point me in the right direction?

  • robertoveca1585's avatar
    robertoveca1585
    Copper Contributor

    Is there a way to avoid labels like 'several days/months ago' and display the specific date and time instead?

  • Hi! Regarding planner - We have a problem that we have some users with over 3000 tasks with the result that we are not able to give them more tasks. If I delete taks that are finised - is it possible to find these on a later point? In a log of some sorts? 

  • PetrBurgert's avatar
    PetrBurgert
    Copper Contributor

    Hello,

    It's very sad that this very usel feature is not included in Planner Plan 1 😞

    Why we need to purchase Project Plan 3 even if we don't need use Project online, but only Project for web.

     

     

  • JamesM's avatar
    JamesM
    Brass Contributor

    Locking features behind more licenses will drive us away from this product.

  • Inquiry: Extracting and programmatically consume Data from Microsoft Planner for Reporting

    Hi,

    I'm seeking advice and guidance on how to pull the data and programmatically consume the data from Microsoft Planner for reporting purposes. Any guidance or resources on the best methods or technologies to achieve this would be greatly appreciated.

  • TobiasAT's avatar
    TobiasAT
    Steel Contributor

    AlexanderLahuerta 
    Project Plan 3 requirement for a task history, really? I assume you know that a Project Plan 3 license costs 30 USD per month by user. 

    Simple question, what is the technical limitation in providing the task history for all Project (and Planner) customers? Or is it just about additional money.