Blog Post

Planner Blog
3 MIN READ

What’s new in Microsoft Planner – May 2025

NancyatMSFT's avatar
NancyatMSFT
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 28, 2025
This month, explore the latest enhancements to Microsoft Planner, including the streamlined Status Reports feature for project updates, expanded functionality of the Project Manager across multiple v...
Updated Jun 27, 2025
Version 4.0
microsoft teams
office 365
planner
OwenJones's avatar
OwenJones
Iron Contributor
Jun 18, 2025

Before adding fancy features that no-one is asking for PLEASE fix the basics first, so Planner can actually be used by real project managers (I understand Microsoft itself doesn't use it for project management which says something). If this doesn't start happening our organisation will be switching to Asana or Monday pretty soon.

  • Backup and restore for a plan (the current copy feature is not complete). This is a huge risk right now.
  • Bulk update of tasks
  • Fixing the bug on effort calculation when duration is changed
  • Proper resource management including multiple projects
  • Task dependencies between different projects
  • Speed, both in basic usability and the backend
dancas's avatar
dancas
Copper Contributor
Jun 22, 2025

Is there any other threads on the issue of the bug around ‘effort calculation’?

  • BrianSmithPhotos's avatar
    BrianSmithPhotos
    Iron Contributor
    Jun 22, 2025

    I'm not aware of any bugs as such, but it can be difficult to follow exactly why a calculation does what it does.  An example would help of what you consider this 'bug' is dancas​ 

    • dancas's avatar
      dancas
      Copper Contributor
      Jun 22, 2025

      Hey Brian,

      It may be a mix of peculiar formulas to determine the % and a glitch in the matrix. I have a team of 15 PMs and we moved from Planisware to Planner Prem, cost savings plus simplified being part of the O365 infrastructure.  

      So now that we are on Planner Prem, there were dozens of instances where the card goes to 100% even with the due date months in the future. It has seemed to improve as of early this month, but when we transitioned if you moved the percentage forward it would jump to 100% even if the due date was 6 months in the future and your task list was only halfway completed. In the attached instance, we had to change the % complete to 73% to get it past 50% but not 100%.

       

      • OwenJones's avatar
        OwenJones
        Iron Contributor
        Jun 23, 2025

        If you change Duration for a task that is partially complete the Effort Remaining also updates, but not vice versa. Changing the Duration should not update Effort and  changing Effort should not update Duration, the two should be independent. So the current behavior is inconsistent and just half right.

        There are also weird automatic updates, for example:

        1. Create a task with Duration 1 week and Effort Remaining 10 hours
        2. Change %Complete to 50% -> Effort Completed & Remaining update logically to 5 hours each
        3. Now change Duration to 2 weeks -> %Complete changes illogically to 25%
        4. Now change %Complete back to 50% -> Effort Completed bizarrely updates to 6.67 hours and Remaining to 3.33 hours.

         

        Furthermore, the default effort is also calculated for a task based on a fixed 8 hours/day which is almost universally unrealistic. You should either be able to set the benchmark hours/day based on assignee or project, or just avoid calculating a spurious value and leave the effort to be set manually.

        Right now our organisation has given up entirely trying to use the Effort fields, since the behaviour is so unpredictable and unrealistic.