MicrosoftHi Owen, glad it was somewhat helpful. With any solution there's always gotchas!
On your other questions:
For backup and restore, there's good news here. While it's not possible to backup the Default environment and it's data specifically, if you work with your IT group to setup a 'named' environment of Planner and the Power App, that database can absolutely be backed up and restored. There's even the ability to move the solution configuration between environments if you intend to do a prod/dev setup.
For bulk updates, maybe if you share a bit more about what you're looking for here, we can come up with ideas/options? In the end of the day you are writing back to a database, so understanding the specific use case would be helpful.
For resource management, that's definitely possible based upon how the Planner Premium scheduling engine works. Alot of that happens via the Power App and Power BI reporting, here's a link to a webinar covering this specific topic and the solution's capabilities: https://youtu.be/6eZIzN211cA?si=63OBAuEu3CBEKVJW
If you need more than what this offers, the Project Online solution is available, which gets to a much more granular resource management level (timesheets, % allocation on activities, resource requests, etc.)
Finally on task dependencies between across multiple projects, you are correct, this is currently a function that Planner Premium does not support, mainly because there's no way to open multiple plans simultaneously and create those linkages. That's another thing Project Online and Project Pro do really well, so if this is a requirement, that solution may be a better fit.
Reach out or direct message me if you'd like to have an offline conversation about any of this. Thanks.
Rob, thanks again, this is great.
I’ll take a look at the environment setup for backups, that sounds promising.
Bulk updates are typically things like assigning a whole set of tasks to the same person, or moving a set from one sprint to another. Generally the quickest way we have found to do this is via the grid view going down line by line for a particular field, but it’s painful, particularly since the UI is fairly slow. Being able to select multiple tasks in the board view to drag and drop would be much faster, for example.
Hammerhead looks really interesting, will take a closer look at that with the team.
We generally wanted to stay away from the higher end tools like Pro, since it will limit use to the higher end PMs. The great thing about Planner is that it (more or less) integrates with the rest of M365, and all assignees can get a decent view of their own tasks. Project Pro or similar will be more of a centralised tool without that visibility. It’s frustrating that Planner does have all the data available underneath, it just isn’t making the jump to really operate as an enterprise tool and leverage that potential. IMHO the effort on Copilot is completely misplaced right now - I’ve tried using the Project Manager agent and although it is quite flashy, if you’re thinking of using this to manage a real project you need your head examined, it’s a very long way from that. A small amount of effort on getting the basics right would be a massively better investment for MS - clearly Projility can see that, hence the Hammerhead tool!
Owen: got it on the bulk updates, unfortunately that's just how the UI works. We've heard requests over the years for this functionality but we've never seen it fully implemented. Most folks want Planner/Project to work more like Excel for things like this, which makes total sense in a real-world setting like the one you listed above.
With Project Pro, you do have the option of using the Project Online service, which does provide folks assigned tasks a 'My Tasks' view (example below) that they can use to update all their tasks, in one place. When you are looking at larger #'s of projects, and people having literally dozens of tasks to track and manage, something like this makes complete sense. Kanban boards get unmanageable once you start hitting a couple dozen tasks.... it's just the balance between meeting basic users where they are and providing functionality in the same tool to do more enterprise management.
On the AI front, we're honestly all trying to figure out the best use cases for this that add true value (save time, reduce costs, and in the end make a PM more effective and efficient). Most of the initial use cases we've heard from clients are around automation of routine tasks that DON'T require thought - things like producing reports, or proactively providing data that's forward looking so a PM or manager could use that info to make good decisions (versus hours just to get to the data). I think that's truly the holy grail with AI and PM near-term, better proactive risk and forecast management that helps you see trouble coming, and can use your brain to come up with suggestions based upon what machines come up with. We shall see!
Rob, I totally agree, some kind of UI that resembles excel for simple bulk updates would be exactly right. An enhancement to the grid view would seem like a pretty obvious way to implement this.
Project Pro is all well and good, but it lacks one of the key positives of Planner which is a simple interface for task assignees. I have worked in programme/project and line management roles for many years, and I have yet to see a tool that truly spans the needs of PMs, line/resource managers, and assignees. Planner already has many of the key components - a mostly unified database, Gantt & Kanban capability that is good enough for most mid-level projects, and an M365 collaboration interface that assignees are already using. It wouldn’t take much to bridge the remaining gaps - give line managers the ability to control their incoming workload vs capacity, and give programme/project managers the ability to manage tasks across multiple projects. The Hammerhead tool is obviously targeted at the first of these, although it would be better if it was integrated within the main Planner interface rather than having to go via Power Apps. (While I absolutely agree with the principle of a simple basic interface, there are multiple ways to make advanced features easily accessible to power users without adding clutter.) There are several comments here eg from AlexNak and JacobW620 on very similar lines - the Planner direction two years ago was looking very promising, but in the past year it seems to have got stuck in a Copilot morass.
On Copilot, there clearly is a lot of ultimate potential, but I would absolutely agree that in the near/medium term it should focus on reliably automating simple functions rather than some speculative nirvana. A request like “build me a project plan” is a nonsense right now, but requests like “assign all server build tasks to John”, “check for any resource risks in the next 3 months”, or “copy the integration section from my last project” are much more useful and achievable. Unfortunately right now Copilot seems to be trying to run before it can walk. Project managers work to increase predictability and reduce risk, so if Copilot introduces additional uncertainty or variability it is going in completely the wrong direction. I’m afraid to say it but the Project Manager agent as it stands is really just a marketing demonstration, not a professional tool. I don’t know whether the Planner development team is actually listening to feedback from real-world project or resource managers, but right now it appears as if the development direction is being set according to distant management mandates and marketing hype, rather than people who will ultimately use the tool (or not). I really hope the feedback here does end up somewhere meaningful, looking across multiple message boards on this topic there seem to be plenty of experienced people with opinions similar to what I have expressed, and it would be a pity if Planner misses the opportunity that is clearly within its grasp.NancyatMSFT are all the comments in this feedback stream actually going anywhere, they seem pretty consistent?
