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The new Microsoft Planner begins roll out to General Availability

Roberto_Bojorquez's avatar
Apr 03, 2024

We are excited to announce that starting today and over the course of the coming weeks we are rolling out general availability of the new Planner in Microsoft Teams! We first announced the new Planner last November at Microsoft Ignite and the response was incredibly positive.

Last month, we released the new Planner app in Teams as part of Microsoft Teams Public Preview. Many of you have already started exploring new capabilities of the new Planner in Teams and sharing your feedback, which has been incredibly helpful to getting ready for general availability – thank you!

We will start rolling out to a small percentage and expanding over the coming weeks until we reach 100%, so it is expected that not everyone will get this update immediately. We are excited for you to try out the new Planner and we will continue to learn and improve the product based on your feedback.

The new Microsoft Planner journey starts in Teams

The new Microsoft Planner – which brings together the simplicity of Microsoft To Do, the collaboration of Microsoft Planner, the power of Microsoft Project for the web into a simple, familiar experience – starts rolling out today in Microsoft Teams. The new Planner allows you to scale from simple work management for individuals to collaborative work management with your team, and all the way to enterprise scale project management, empowering everyone to manage their work in one place and accelerate business outcomes.

The new Planner app in Microsoft Teams

With this initial rollout, there is no change to the other To Do, Planner, and Project for the Web endpoints outside of Microsoft Teams. They will keep working as always. As announced at Ignite, the next set of endpoints that will receive the upgrade to the new Planner later this year will be Planner web and Project for the web.

Introducing a new Planner icon

As part of reimagining the new Planner app we are also introducing a new icon.

 

The new Planner icon

This exciting new look represents the expanded capabilities and vision of the new Microsoft Planner and represents both the evolution and heritage for the work management apps that it brings together. The new icon represents the concepts of collaboration, empowerment, workflow, goals, accomplishment, and simplicity. It has fluidity, movement, and activity supporting the idea of getting work done together. The colors themselves incorporate the Microsoft 365 palette, connecting Planner to the broader suite, and demonstrating how tasks and plans play a key role in many of our products. We hope you like it as much as we do!

Experiencing premium capabilities in the new Planner

Users with an M365 license will have access to a rich set of capabilities for individual and team work management. These include the ability to create and edit tasks and plans, see a full list of tasks assigned to you within My Tasks, various plan views (Grid, List, and Board), My Day, and more.

When you are ready to experience premium features within the new Planner, simply click on the diamond icon within the app where you can begin your free 30-day trial of these advanced capabilities or proceed with requesting a premium license. Some premium features include Timeline (Gantt) view, dependencies, sprints, custom fields, team workload, managing goals, and more!

If you already have a Project license you’re already equipped with access to the new Planner’s premium capabilities corresponding to the license you have.

In the next few days, we will also roll out a name change to the Project Plan 1 license to align with our rebrand of the new Planner app. This license will soon be listed as Planner Plan 1 and will continue to be the first of three primary licenses that provide users with premium features. There are no changes in pricing or features. The current Project Plan 3 and Project Plan 5 will not be renamed at this time.

How to know if you have the new Planner

Since we will be rolling this out in waves over the next few weeks, the way to know if you have gotten the new Microsoft Planner in Teams is to check the updated name and icon in top-left corner of the app.

This is what you will see if the new Microsoft Planner has been rolled out to you:

Image of the updated Planner in Microsoft Teams

If the new Microsoft Planner has not been rolled out to you yet, you should see this:

Image of non-updated version of Planner in Microsoft Teams
You can always opt-in to Teams Public Preview to see the new Planner earlier.

Coming soon 

We will be updating the new Planner frequently as we are rolling out to general availability, so you can expect fixes and features to light up in the next few days and weeks. Some notable ones that will be coming:

- Copilot in Planner. Copilot in the new Planner is currently available to try only through Microsoft Teams public preview.
- Ability to upgrade a basic plan to a premium plan
- A faster and better My Day and My Tasks
- Ability to see Project for the web tasks in My Tasks (currently rolling out to GA in waves )
- Ability to sort the task list
- General bug fixes
 
As a premium feature, Copilot in Planner can help break down tasks into subtasks, identify work needed to meet project goals, and answer basic questions on the overall status of the project. To get the latest information on when Copilot will be available in Planner, sign up for our newsletter here. 

Learn more about the new Planner from the Planner Product Team

Share your Feedback

Your feedback is valuable as we continue to release new capabilities. There are several ways to share your feedback with us. You can share feedback through the new Planner app in Teams directly. You can also send us your feedback via the Planner Feedback Portal.
 

Resources:

• We’ve got a lot more ‘planned’ for the new Planner this year! Stay tuned to the Planner Blog - Microsoft Community Hub for news.
• Sign up to get the latest updates on the new Planner
• For future of the new Planner app, please view the Microsoft 365 roadmap here
Updated Nov 11, 2024
Version 8.0

102 Comments

  • jplighthouse's avatar
    jplighthouse
    Copper Contributor

    First of all, THANK YOU for updating the Planner icon. The previous icon was confusing, but this new icon looks beautiful and instantly recognizable as a task/planning app.

     

    Second of all, I REALLY hope this comes to consumers as well (inside and outside of Teams). It would make sense to replace the To Do apps on desktop and mobile since they haven't been updated in a long time, with new Planner apps especially since a lot of feature requests for To Do already exist in the new Planner! And any premium features can be enabled with accounts signed in with a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription, making Planner a true competitor to apps like Trello. It would also simplify marketing and user awareness for both business and consumer users as everything task and planning related should fall into the 'Planner' brand.

     

    Exciting to try this out! :smile:

  • TobiasAT's avatar
    TobiasAT
    Iron Contributor

    I can use the new Planner since 10 days or so, and don't understand the excitement. 

     

    1. The new Planner is primary a design refreshment. 
    2. With the new Planner Microsoft wants to sell more Project Plan 1 (for Premium capabilities) and Project Plan 3 licenses (for Copilot in Planner). Copilot in Planner is not included in Copilot for M365 as vice versa. So customers have to buy Project Plan 3 to use Copilot in Planner, in addition to the Copilot for M365 license. #Edit: Interesting side fact, both licenses cost the same price with an annual commitment = customers have to pay 60 USD per user and month for both Copilot integrations.  #EditEnd
    3. The main pain points are still not repaired / fixed. Commenting is a mess with the comment storage in a mailbox, still no mentioning, no usable user / permission management, formatting is still not implemented (but was planned/announced for December 2021 and postponed for several times).
    4. Yes, the new Planner includes now Project tasks. 
    5. With a Basic plan users create a limited Personal plan (or limited Personal Premium plan), and are not informed about the limitations. 


    For me, overall, your refreshment of Planner is mainly to get additional money due to Planner Premium features and the everywhere Copilot thing. The new Planner is not to fix some of the 695+ feedbacks from the Planner Feedback forum