MicrosoftIt's very disappointing that powerful features like easy to use Power Automate flows and Calendar View are not making the cut. These are currently part of Planner Basic but won't be part of Planner Premium (for the Web); they are not mentioned on the RoadMap and I don't see any mention of them in any relevant Blog posts.
These are incredibly valuable easy to use features that are inexplicably being left behind in favor of an AI Project Manager that auto-generates random tasks based on buzz words? This doesn't bring any value to Professional Project Managers and appears to be targeted at novices who struggle to even come up with tasks for their plan. If the goal of this product merger is to make Project Management easier to implement and use, why discard features that are already part of the platform and also make it more customizable and user friendly?
Planner Premium has been integrating the old features of Project for the Web for over a year now and it is still less feature rich than Project for the Web and without some of the features of Planner Basic, with the only actual *new* product additions are custom backgrounds and this rehashed Copilot agent that requires a Loop subscription. It's shockingly underwhelming for the amount of time spent on developing this product.
Hi Alex, not going to argue against your points at all b/c they all very valid. I WILL say in having worked with many clients using Planner Premium (formerly Project for the web), it's generally been a huge step up in functionality. It helps folks go from collaborative work into more structured project planning and management effectively. Once they see the difference in the two tools they get it, and can make a decision on one versus the other based upon their needs.
Sure Premium it's definitely missing some things that SHOULD be there, but for most folks see the value in the new tools. Example is calendars - in project planning calendars, while useful, get waaaaayy too cluttered with tasks, which is why the 'timeline' (or Gantt) view is extremely helpful in laying out all tasks on a visual timeline. Calendars are available in the MS Project Pro client today but honestly we don't find many formal PMs using these at all. But it would be nice feature to re-add in for the simpler schedules!
Def agree the AI component is a huge work in progress, as we're all trying to figure out the best use cases for this new tech!
If you look at Planner Premium today, Microsoft has added baselining capability (a HUGE ask for a long time!) so you can now do basic variance analysis. There's still stuff missing (actuals, anyone??) and I would agree with you that adding high value features makes alot of sense versus experimental stuff, but that's why these forums are great for both users like us and Microsoft to listen.
Planner Premium is absolutely a step up from standard Planner, I suppose my key problem with it is that it's a rebrand of Project for the Web, which had a huge drop off in development after being touted as the next big thing for MS Project.
For myself, and many other users of Planner, Power Automate is a key feature of how we aggregate updates from other systems and Calendar is a simple way of sharing information with a group that may not have the need for or have the skill to parse the depth of a full blown Timeline.
MS has a tendency to start strong and finish flat. There are no new planned features in the Planner MS365 roadmap for the rest of the year and this has me concerned about the longevity of its development. This is exactly what happened with Project for the Web; there was a few months of new features announced every month and then they basically stopped development in July of '23, and added just two more features after that; goals and baseline.
I fail to see the value is adopting Planner Premium if it's just going to get maybe one or two more features and then sit around for a few years waiting for a rebrand and non-critical flavor-of-the-month features. I'm glad your clients are excited to use it, there's plenty to like here and I hope I'm mistaken about Planner Premium and that their investment in this product is not misplaced.
Definitely agree on the longevity concern. We made an organisational decision 18 months ago to switch to Planner based on what appeared to be a solid strategy and roadmap at the time. Since then MS appears to have completely run out of steam (apart from the Copilot waste of effort) so we are starting to question our own investment in the product.
