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Manage multiple plans effortlessly with the new Portfolios feature in Microsoft Planner

Meet_Sanghvi's avatar
Meet_Sanghvi
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Dec 03, 2024

Learn about Portfolios, a new feature designed to help users track and manage multiple plans in Planner.

Managing multiple plans across different projects can often become overwhelming for team leads, project managers, or any user handling various deliverables. To simplify the process, we’ve designed a ...
Updated Dec 02, 2024
Version 1.0
kazoo60's avatar
kazoo60
Copper Contributor
Feb 09, 2025

Thank you for updates on the Portfolio feature.  I am able to add plans to Portfolios but am not seeing how to access these features listed in the https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/planner/project-plan-5?activetab=pivot:overviewtab.  

I upgraded my Plan 3 subscription to Plan 5 a few days ago, but I haven't noticed any new options that allow me to view resource load across a portfolio. I've checked the Planner interface, portfolios views, people and assignment views, but nothing seems to provide a portfolio-wide view of resource assignments. Is the advertising incorrect, or is this feature still on the roadmap and not yet released? I did see the suggestion to use Power BI to build reports across projects in this thread, which is feasible, but I was under the impression that Plan 5 would offer a view similar to the Assignments view within projects, applicable across all projects in a portfolio, and supporting adjustments. Managing resources across projects is crucial for our team, so any insights you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

  • robhprojility's avatar
    robhprojility
    Brass Contributor
    Feb 10, 2025

    Hi, the Plan 5 license and Resource management functionality is specific to the Project Online service, now Planner. Here's the text from the page you referenced on the Microsoft website: 

    "Manage and optimize your project portfolios to prioritize initiatives and drive effective resource management. Includes the Project Online desktop client and Project Online."

     

    If you need to look across your resources with views into Assignments, across the Portfolio, you'll need to use Power BI for reporting, and setup your 'resource pool' in the Planner Power App, which supports configuration of components like target resource utilization, calendars, definition of resource metadata such as skills, dept, etc.  You can certainly setup basic resource view and reports (work, hours, assignments, etc.) with Power BI, the Power App will allow you to take this to another level.

    Sample screenshot below, reach out if you need any guidance:

     

     

     

     

    • kazoo60's avatar
      kazoo60
      Copper Contributor
      Feb 23, 2025

      Thank you for your reply. I am new to using Project Online and have spent a couple of weeks now, off and on, reviewing articles and videos on the subject.  Unfortunately, I am finding very little information that matches up to what I actually see in our environment.  I am wondering if you could answer a few follow-up questions. 

      1. In your reply you mention "... setup your 'resource pool' in the Planner Power App".  I don't see a Planner Power App in our applications list in Microsoft 365.  Should it be there? Is this something that needs to be enabled in the Admin portal - if so where (not apparent on my searches)?  Or, is this something that must be created?  Searching for how to do the integration turned up this article ... which seems a bit off topic: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/teams/integrate-planner

      2. Many of the articles and videos I have found on looking at resource loading across projects mention the "Project Online Resource Center".  For example - this article from MS: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-team-resources-in-project-online-55c86326-9f88-47df-9030-0746f1cccb21#:~:text=the%20Resource%20Center.-,In%20Project%20Online%2C%20on%20the%20Quick%20Launch%2C%20choose%20Resources.,When%20finished%2C%20choose%20Save.  Has this feature been removed by Microsoft?  I can't find it anywhere.  I do see this page (using a *crm.dynamics.com URL) which was already populated with resources involved in our Planner project but shows no assignments or other features the articles about Project Online Resource Center

        I also found this page at another dynamics.com address for making bookings but none of the assignments in our Planner projects appear there.  Is this something the Power App would do? 

        Thank you again for your reply and I do understand that the solution will end up being a Power BI report.  At this point I'm not seeing how to get access to a data sources that will include our task and resource data from our Planner plans to report on in Power BI.  The description of the Planner 5 license says that viewing resource loading across a project portfolio is "easily" support.  I disagree it is easy, but I'm hopeful it is possible.